Completing Their Circle
by Mstremble2
Summary: This is the sequel to Completing the Circle. *****I DO NOT OWN THESE CHARACTERS DICK WOLF DOES. I AM JUST BORROWING THEM FOR THIS JOURNEY*****
1. The Aftermath

Elliot walked out of the interrogation Room knowing everyone outside the window was watching him. He did not, could not, talk to or look at any of them, he could feel the tears of extreme anger and frustration trying to make their way down his cheeks, he went to the desk he and Olivia had shared and grabbed his coat as he tried to stop the tears from escaping. He could hear her behind him, everything in him was screaming, _'Run, that is what you do, you don't face things that is not who you are' _then he remembered Sabrina's words not so long ago, 'How has bottling up your feelings and running from them worked for you?'. He wanted so bad to run and needed to run but feeling her touch his shoulder stopped him in his tracks, it was that simple gesture that made him realize he was not going anywhere, he felt the tears fall as he just stood there with his back to her. Olivia walked up behind him and put her hand lightly on his shoulder he bent his head and his shoulders slumped as they started to shake, she knew full well that he wanted to run away from everything he had been through and bury it. She remembered when she had found out his mother was alive and not dead like he had led her to believe, when she confronted him about it he shutdown. She really hoped that Sabrina had gotten through to him enough that he would fight the urge to run. She said thinking back to her own feelings after Sealview,

"I know you are not okay and I am not going to ask you to talk about this right now, but I do know you don't want to be alone."

She watched him as he quietly and very emotionally said without turning around,

"I don't want to be alone, but you are right, I can't talk about it right now."

It was then that she heard the tears. She wanted to hug him but she remembered when she came back from Sealview being touched was the last thing she wanted.

She really did fully understand where he was coming from, she had been in the exact same place not so many years ago and he never pushed but always made it clear he was there for her. At this moment, he finally knew why she could never talk about Sealview, he had never witnessed her attack but she had witnessed his.

Sabrina came out of the room, as Fin went in and read Dr. George Huang his rights and placed him under arrest. Sabrina and Cragen made it to the squad room just as Elliot and Olivia were heading out, Sabrina said causing him to stop,

"Elliot, you know where I am when you are ready to talk, and Olivia my offer is open to you as well."

Elliot turned to look at the lady he trusted as much as he did Olivia, his eyes were red and wet from his tears which continued to fall. He heard Cragen gasp as he quickly said,

"I promise I will call. I just need time."

She nodded and let him go knowing he was going home with Olivia. Olivia looked at Sabrina and said,

"We will be at my place. I'll keep you in the loop."

Sabrina nodded. After they left the squad, Cragen said to Sabrina,

"Doc, this is worse than when he shot Jenna. I have seen him in different stages of emotion but I have only seen him in tears once, and that was years ago, we had a shaken baby case where a mother shook her daughter so hard she left her brain dead and Elliot went to Arthur Branch, the DA at the time and asked him to find a way to take the little girl off of life support because the doctor had said she was in constant pain and there was no hope of her getting better. The mother knew she would be charged with murder so she did not want to turn off the machines, Branch got the court to turn off the machines and the little girl died, the mother was charged. That night I got a call from the bar where Elliot was drinking, I went in and he was drunk and holding a picture of Maureen when she was that little girl's age and when he saw me I saw his red eyes, from the liquor but also the emotion. He told me that after his discharge from the Marines before he started with the department, he and Kathy had bought a new rug which they could not afford and Maureen split grape juice on it, he slapped her and she cried and just as he was about to slap her again he stopped himself, by this time he is crying, I drove him home. I'm scared for him maybe in hindsight this was not a good idea."

Sabrina nodded,

"No Captain this is not worse and this was not a bad idea, he has been sheltered since Jenna and this was a good test. At least he is showing his emotions and not bottling them up. He is also walking out of here with Olivia and not away from her."

Cragen asked,

"You have gotten to know him really well..."

Sabrina said,

"Yes I have, and under all that muscle and brooding there is a man with a heart of gold who tries very hard not to show his softer emotions which run very deep, even despite wearing them on his sleeve. I don't need to tell you what a good man he is."

Cragen shrugged,

"No you don't. That is what made him such a good detective. I didn't realize how much I really missed him around here until this case with Babs. He left a huge hole in this unit that I will not be able to fill during my tenure."

Cragen looked at Sabrina and said,

"But something else is bothering you."

Sabrina looked at the older man and nodded,

"I am not bothered but I am really pissed with one thing and that is George knew how bad Elliot was after Jenna's shooting and how much hard work it took on his part and mine to get him to open up and talk. How did I miss George's anger and contempt?"

Cragen said,

"It's not your fault. We all missed it."

Sabrina shook her head,

"I know it is not my fault. I mentored George when he first joined the bureau and I was not looking at him as a threat because I did not see his demons, but something Elliot said to me during one of our first sessions now has me questioning things. He said something about George that I did not take seriously at the time because Elliot had just come to the Clinic and I thought it was just resentment towards George for getting him 'locked up', as he liked to put it in the beginning. Now thinking back on it, I should not have shaken it off so easily and Elliot never brought it up again during future sessions."

As she said this Fin and John brought George out to take him to Central Booking, when Sabrina saw him she said,

"He may not have said it, but he trusted you enough to go to you when he shot Jenna and ask for help. Like you pointed out he could have gone to Skoda, Hendrix even Jackson, but it was you he turned to when he was in his darkest deepest hour and this is how you repay him?"

George looked at her and said,

"He is like you, made of Teflon. Nothing sticks to either one of you."

John squeezed George's arm and yelled,

"YOU POOR LITTLE MAN."

He went nose to nose with George, catching everyone by surprise, and said,

"I have known Elliot a lot longer than you and have the honour of calling him my friend. I knew the man he was before this job got personal for him, before all the anger and hotheadedness. We were all here when he flew off the handle so easily, he went past his breaking point and we did nothing to help him. You saw it and did nothing, Skoda saw it and pulled him aside to get him to talk, Hendrix opened her door to him, even Cap Jackson took the time to listen when he was ready to talk. But you Mr. FBI profiler didn't even profile that our top detective was going through post traumatic stress disorder, falling off the edge until he went begging to you for help. We were all suppose to trust you to keep everyone of us off that edge and did you do that no, you just pushed one of the best men I have ever known over that edge. But in the words of Detective Benson, 'the boys in prison are going to love you'.

George looked at Fin,

"You have nothing to say?"

Fin said as he steered George towards the door,

"What he said. Let's go. I need to take a shower and wash this filth off me."

It was a quiet ride as Olivia drove to her place, she felt Elliot slide his hand in hers and entwine his fingers, she squeezed his hand. All he did was think about the night, he had been held hostage, stripped nude, touched against his will, and even though there was no penetration her touch had left him having to get tested for AIDS and STDs, Melinda had also xrayed his ribs and arm to make sure there was no further damage which there wasn't thankfully, and to top it off he was told by a man he was suppose to trust, but never really did, that he loved him and was trying to hurt him to get back at Elliot for not returning his love. Olivia felt him squeeze her hand and then loosen it, she looked at him, he said quietly almost a whisper,

"Remember when Babs hit on you and you asked me if I ever got a gay vibe off you? Right now I am asking you the same question about myself."

She was glad it was dark out because he would not see her smile. She wasn't smiling at the him or his situation she had to smile that this was his first thought. She got serious and said,

"You have to be the straightest guy I have ever met. I have never once gotten a gay vibe of you. But what I love about you is that you carry yourself with a confidence that is sexy as hell."

He said just as quietly,

"I am so sorry."

She was shocked,

"You have nothing to be sorry about. We have been through worse and we will get through this in time. Think of us as a tree, some branches are bend, some are broken but our roots are still firmly planted and we will not be uprooted."

They got to her building and she unlocked the door. Once inside her apartment she used the washroom to wash her face as he got a drink of juice, when she came out he said,

"I'm going to take a shower, I'll leave the door unlocked."

She nodded and asked,

"Are you hungry? I can order take out."

He shook his head, and went into the bathroom. She remembered how she felt after Sealview and she did not feel like eating for a couple of days afterwards, but he showed up with a pizza and left it in her fridge. At one point she was thankful because she got up hungry and just had to warm it up, once she knew he was in the shower she ordered pizza and Chinese take out. She changed her clothes and put on her pjs, he had been in the shower for half an hour she lightly knocked on the door to make sure he was okay, he didn't answer so she went in. He was sitting in the middle of the tub with his knees up and his head down crying, harder than she had ever seen him do, with the water pouring down over him. She left the bathroom to give him his privacy, it broke her heart to see him so hurt, it also made her realize what he had gone through worrying about her when she went through Sealview. He heard her knock but did not answer, he heard her open the door but did not stop crying, he heard her leave and knew he would be fine, she was giving him time.


	2. A New Understanding

She had never talked to him about it, even though he had asked many times and told her whenever she was ready he would be there. She just never wanted to put that on him, she never wanted him to see her weak, problem was from what she had seen he had been more violated than she had and since she never talked about it she figured Sabrina would be the only one he would talk to. At Sealview, the guard had tried to force himself into her mouth but Fin had gotten there in time, but even that was too close. Her thoughts were interrupted with a knock to her door, it was the takeout food, both arrived at once, when she opened the door they both said looking at each other and then at her,

"Do I have the right place?"

She chuckled outloud realizing how it might look,

"Yes I ordered from both places. I wasn't sure what to order so I ordered both."

Both men nodded, as she paid them both and tipped them. She put the food on the counter as she heard the shower turn off, she poured them both a glass of wine, he walked out of the bathroom in a tshirt and full pj bottoms with socks.

She said as she handed him a glass,

"It will take a while before you actually feel clean after showering."

He took the glass as she sat on the couch. He sat down beside her and decided to walk through the crack in the door she was opening and took a gulp of the wine and after a short silence he asked,

"How long did it take before you actually took a shower where you did feel clean?"

She knew she had made the opening, she was scared to open that door fully but she knew he needed her to and needed to for herself, although she had to take baby steps to getting there. She said,

"About a month."

He nodded and took another sip of his wine, if he didn't feel so disgusted about what had happened to himself he would have been surprised and pleased she had answered. He said looking at the counter,

"You order enough food?"

She smiled and laughed, causing Elliot to laugh, just now realizing how absurd the amount of food looked,

"I wasn't sure if you really wanted to eat or not. I know I didn't eat for a full day or two after Sealview. But I was very thankful that you had put that pizza in my fridge, it was the first thing I ate."

He nodded, he remembered that time. He said,

"You know as cops we think we are trained over time for everything and can handle almost every situation, but damn some things you can never be ready for."

She nodded taking a sip of her wine,

"I hear you. We also think nothing is suppose to scare us, but sometimes being scared is what saves us."

He nodded as he put his glass down on the table and put his hand out to her and he said as she took it,

"I've been in a lot of scary situations, first with the marines and then as a cop, but I always had my marine training and then there is you always having my back and, of course my gun, so I always felt triply protected, tonight was the first time I was more scared than I have ever been in my life. I really thought tonight my life was over, I really thought I was going to die, and although I survived my life has been changed and as I lay tied to that table all I kept thinking about was you and my kids, and how much I am in love with you and how much I really need to show you but..."

He stopped and took a breath and then continued,

"until I get the test results back we can't be physically intimate. I won't let you feel this dirt on me."

She said as she moved closer to him,

"I am more in love with you than I ever thought I could love anyone, and just by being here and letting me go through this with you shows me how much you love me and right now that is enough for me. In time the physical stuff will come and I can wait."

He pulled her close into a tight hug and whispered,

"I don't know how long this will take but please be patient with me while I find my way through this mess my life has become."

She knew exactly what he was saying but she also knew that this type of intimacy was enough for her until he was ready to be physical. She WAS going to be there for him like he was for her, only she was going to talk this time so he knew he was not alone. She said,

"The fact that you are not shutting me out tells me exactly how much you love me, and you need to know I am here for you no matter what."

She noticed his hesitation and asked,

"El? What is it?"

He looked at her,

"How long was it before you knew you would really be okay?"

She hesitated and then answered,

"I never thought I would ever be okay, I do know it changed me. It took me months before I could go out with a man on just a date after Sealview. And even longer to be comfortable enough to have intercourse."

He looked over at her, as she looked down at her knees. He said noticing her discomfort,

"I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable or rehash old memories..."

She put her hand on his leg and shook her head to stop him,

"You didn't. I've just never talked about it outside of the group therapy I went to."

Elliot asked,

"Not even Melinda, Casey or Alex?"

She looked at him again shaking her head and said,

"No. I could never bring myself too. I don't know if you were aware, that I went to group therapy for over a year just to get my life back."

He nodded and she asked knowing she should not be surprised that he knew because he always had her back and that is what she really missed about him being her partner, they knew each other so well they could talk without words he always knew when she needed him and she had gotten to depend on him. She wasn't even surprised when she asked,

"You knew?"

He nodded again and said,

"One night I asked you if you wanted to go for a drink because you just didn't seem yourself and looked like you could use one, you took a rain check saying you had plans, I followed you because something did not feel right to me and you went into the crisis centre. I saw other women going in and one lady was nervous so another one said, 'All kinds of woman are affected by sexual assault, we even have a special victims police detective who was sexually assaulted while undercover.'"

She said,

"You never said anything. Why?"

He said,

"Because I knew this was something you felt like you needed to do on your own and I was respecting your privacy, I was just happy you were getting help. Besides if you needed me you knew I was there for you."

She looked at him curiously. He said,

"Come on, I'm the guy who used my house as leverage for your bond when you were arrested on that bogus murder charge."

She asked,

"Do you need me to give you the same space?"

He shook his head,

"No. One of the many things I learnt during therapy with Hendrix and especially with Sabrina is that it is more than okay to ask for and accept help. I, like you, don't like being a victim, I am not used to feeling helpless and weak or needing help but I trust you and I am in love with you. Like I said, you are my best friend and I don't want or need that to change."

Olivia said,

"I trust you and am in love with you. You are my best friend and I am not looking to change that. But I do promise you I will be here for you every step of the way no matter how bad it gets. We were together before all this happened and we will be together when it is all said and done. You and I need to go through every phase of this together to complete our circle."

He nodded and said more as an afterthought,

"25 years of dealing with victims and I am just now understanding what they were going through."


	3. The Nightmares Begin

_**He woke up to the whirling of chopper blades and the smell of the rubber pads on the floor of the chopper. He couldn't see exactly where he was but he could see the tops of buildings so he knew he was still in the city. He heard George saying as he felt the chopper land, **_

_**"Remember Sarah this is all about completing the circle." **_

_**He could feel the throbbing in his head and leg from where he was jabbed with the needle, he closed his eyes to gather his strength and clear his mind, when the door of the chopper opened and the pilot picked him up like a rag doll. He heard a key in a lock and a door open, he was then carried down some stairs, as he looked around and focused to the changing light the room looked familiar, it was then that he realized they were at the old precinct which he thought was to be torn down in the next few days. He noticed that they were heading towards the interrogation rooms, George was leading the way with Sarah beside him. Once in the room the pilot put him on the table, George and Sarah started to strip him first his shoes and socks, then his pants after which they each tied one of legs down. He tried to fight but couldn't, the pilot was holding his arms down, he tried to kick his legs but George laughed, **_

_**"Fight all you want, we might be small but we are strong." **_

_**Sarah said, **_

_**"Lie back and enjoy the ride." **_

_**Elliot twisted and turned feeling the pain in his ribs. Realizing he was screwed he tried to talk his way out of it saying, **_

_**"Please don't. I will do anything for this not to happen." **_

_**George looked at him, **_

_**"Tell me Detective Stabler what are you offering?" **_

_**Elliot, **_

_**"What are you asking for?" **_

_**George looked at him, **_

_**"One night alone with you." **_

_**Elliot looked at him, **_

_**"Okay, I can do that." **_

_**George laughed, **_

_**"Really?"**_

_**Elliot thinking he was making headway, **_

_**"Yes really." **_

_**George, **_

_**"Prove it." **_

_**Elliot, **_

_**"Untie me and I will." **_

_**George shook his head and walked to the head of the table, he looked at Elliot, **_

_**"Prove it by kissing me and use tongue. Then we talk about untying you." **_

_**Elliot looked at him and hesitated. George saw the hesitation and said, **_

_**"There you go teasing me again." **_

_**Sarah moved to his shirt and took it off of him, she had him in nothing but his boxers as the pilot tied his good arm down and Sarah got off him long enough to tie his bad arm down. Elliot pleaded as his tears threatened to come down, **_

_**"I am not teasing you, you want a kiss I will give you one." **_

_**George said to Sarah, **_

_**"You start completing the circle as I go for this kiss." **_

_**George's lips touched Elliot's as he felt George's tongue on his lips pushing into his mouth, as he opened his mouth and touched tongues he felt Sarah's hand in this underwear as she started to touch and grind against him, he pulled out of the kiss and screamed... **_

Olivia awoke to hear him screaming and in a panic,

"STOP PLEASE DON'T".

Olivia tried to wake him, as the sweat started to pour down his face,

"Elliot wake up you are having a nightmare. You are safe please wake up."

Elliot woke up and the first thing he saw were Olivia's scared wide eyes looking down at him. He was breathing hard and fast almost gasping for air. His tshirt was stuck to his chest, which was damp with sweat, and he was shaking, he had tears in his eyes as Olivia held him and gently rocked saying,

"El, I am here you are safe."

He clung to her and said,

"Liv it was so real..."

She said,

"You're okay, just take deep calming breaths. In through your nose out through your mouth."

He nodded he remembered the breathing exercises he had done with Sabrina, he had never told anyone but she had taught him how to meditate when she was teaching him visualization exercises. Once Elliot calmed down he went into the bathroom and washed his face. He looked into the mirror as he recalled the nightmare, he couldn't shake the whole experience. It was then that he got physically sick the whole situation was too much for him to handle. He heard the bathroom door open and Olivia handed him a warm facecloth,

"Are you okay?"

He nodded as he washed his face again and rinsed his mouth out with Listerine. Liv said,

"I will get you a bottle of water and meet you in bed."

He said,

"Okay thanks."

A few minutes later he was sitting on the edge of the bed, drinking from the bottle of water. He put the lid back on it and then stretched out on the bed. Liv lie beside him and asked,

"You want to talk about it?"

He shook his head as he pulled Olivia to his chest and wrapped his arms around her and said,

"Not really. Reliving that night once is more than I can handle."

Liv turned out the light as they lie in silence, he was the strongest man she had ever known and in all the years she had known him anger was his most shared emotion, but to see him share this much vulnerability with her was a whole new situation. She felt him move closer, as he put his arms around her waist and pulled her closer she adjusted herself and molded her body to fit his. He could not get the image of Sarah straddling his naked body out of his head. He could not shake her hand stroking him, he could not shake the sound of George Huang standing in the corner licking his lips and lightly moaning as he watched her stroke him. When he felt her wet thumb rub his tip he was sure George was having his own orgasm, he would never forget the feeling of total violation or humiliation he felt or the flashback he had to the first time he had dealt with a male rape victim, Peter Smith, at that very moment he wished he go back and apologize to him. Suddenly the tears started running down his cheeks and he could not stop them. Olivia felt his tears fall as one landed on her cheek, she moved closer to him. He felt her move closer, as he continued to think about the dream and how terrified he was because he knew he had not ejaculated so he knew the wetness he felt was her fluids and that terror was solidified when Melinda had run the blue light over his nude body and found Sarah's fluids on his genitals. He was glad he had gone to see Melinda, she was a good lady and a good friend, and although she teased Olivia about what it would be like to be with him, - he had walked in on one of their conversations during the early years – but he knew it was girl talk, she was the safest place for him to be at that point, he also knew Olivia had dealt with Melinda after the DA she had dated years early had been found murdered and had AIDS from being on the 'down low'. It was then he knew he needed to talk to Sabrina.

It had been about an hour since they had gone to bed, he felt Olivia move on his chest and he said softly,

"Liv you sleeping?"

She said not moving,

"No. You have too much adrenaline?"

He nodded in the dark and said,

"My mind won't stop."

She looked up at him and said,

"Maybe we should just get up and watch a movie."

He stretched,

"Good idea, make it a comedy, nothing serious."

She put in Harold and Kumar go to White Castle.

He said,

"Really?"

She said,

"I like the character of Freakshow."

He chuckled. They sat together watching the movie and although it was a decent movie they were both sound asleep within 20 mins.

When Liv woke up Elliot was asleep with his head on her lap and the TV was static. She did not want to wake him she knew he needed to sleep, because she knew that tonight would not be his only sleepless night, there would be more ahead. She gently lifted herself out from under him and headed to the bathroom, when she came out he was awake, he used the bathroom and they headed to bed. Without a word they settled in and were fast asleep in each other's arms.

That second morning, he started to take the protocol and antivirals that Melinda had given him but he had trouble keeping food down he was nausea just like the last time.

The next couple of days would prove to be very up and down, Cragen had given her a week of vacation to stay with Elliot. Once Cragen and Sabrina had filled in 1PP about what had happened with Elliot they asked John to step in and take the class for the same week since he was already familiar with the recruits, and Sabrina had agreed to help out.

Melinda had stopped by to check on him and Olivia said,

"He can't keep food down with these pills just like last time and he is having wild nightmares."

Melinda said,

"Unfortunately nausea is still one of the short term side effects of the medication. Make him some protein shakes to help make up for it and just light meals but more of them. As for the nightmares, they also can be a side effect of the pills but that is Sabrina's area of expertise."

Elliot came out of the bathroom, he was wearing jeans and a button down shirt that was open. He said to Melinda when he saw her,

"Hey Melinda."

He went up to Olivia and gave her a kiss on the forehead, he said,

"Good morning I love you."

She kissed him back and said,

"Good morning yourself. I love you."

He was trying to keep things normal, even though he felt far from normal. Melinda smiled she had known these two for so long and seen their relationship change over the years. She was so happy when Elliot had come back into Olivia's life and now this. She said,

"Hey Elliot, I wanted to check on you and see if you needed anything, I was in the neighbourhood."

He shook his head,

"Hey Melinda. It is good to see you. I am alright just not looking forward to the few more sleepless nights ahead."

She said,

"Take your days as they come, but if either of you need anything let me know."

They both nodded. Once she left Elliot looked at Olivia and said,

"What are you doing today?"  
She shrugged,

"Nothing why? What did you have planned?"

He said,

"Let's go for a walk. I want to get out. I also made an appointment to see Sabrina this afternoon."

She said,

"Okay. When did you call Sabrina?"

Elliot,

"When I was in the bathroom."

Olivia nodded as they got their coats and headed out. Olivia lived in downtown Manhattan so she was close to everything, they walked past a newspaper stand and Olivia got a copy of the Post. Elliot went into the bodega and got them each a coffee, he really wasn't in the mood to be out but he knew he had to go out or he would be in trouble. Olivia watched him, he looked different to her he was being overly cautious, she wondered if she had looked different to him. They walked along and got to a small park where there were picnic tables, he said,

"Let's sit for a minute."

They did. Olivia asked him,

"Did I look different to you after Sealview?"

He looked at her, and thought for a minute before he answered,

"Yes. You looked like you were always on guard and you put up a wall. Do you think I look different to you?"

She knew he was right because she had put up a wall. She said,

"Honestly, you are trying too hard to be normal, but you haven't put up a wall and you haven't shut me out. So in that way you are different to me..."

She watched him nod and then added,

"You know, I was thinking that you have a summer break coming up in 6 weeks, and you will be off for 2 months. I have that much vacation time banked, why don't I book it off and you and I take a trip somewhere we both want to go?"

He looked at her and said,

"I think that would be a great idea I was thinking the same thing this morning but first I really need to see Sabrina."

Olivia smiled to herself, this made her so happy. He looked at her and said,

"She said you are welcome also."

Olivia shook her head,

"I will go with you to her office, because the detective and woman in me is curious but I want you to have your first appointment without me so you can really talk to her."

She noticed his disappointed look, and said,

"Unless you really want me to go in with you today..."

He nodded,

"I do want you to go in with me. Liv I don't just love you through the good times, I love you through the bad times too, even if they are my bad times. I remember how I felt when Sealview happened to you and I didn't see any of what you saw the other night. Too me, yes I went through this ordeal but it affects the both of us."

Olivia said,

"Okay what time do we need to be there?"  
He looked at his watch and innocently smiled at her,

"In an hour. Her office is a half hour away."

She smiled and shook her head, he never was one for advance planning,

"Let's go. Munch is going to be so jealous."

Elliot laughed knowing Munch's fixation with Sabrina and said,

"Oh he will live. He has her to himself for a whole week. I'm sure she can now write another best seller based on the Munch Conspiracies."

They both laughed.


	4. Almost Like Starting Over

Sabrina was not surprised that Elliot had called she was just surprised it was so soon. It had only been 2 days since everything went down, she had suspected he would have called in another 5 days.

Olivia and Elliot had taken his car, which he had left at her place, to Forest Hills in Queens where Sabrina lived. She had a home office there where she wrote and the only patient she had for the past two years was Elliot, she had come out of early retirement to help him at Dr. George Huang's request. They pulled up to her place and Olivia said to Elliot,

"Not as fancy as I thought it would be."

Elliot chuckled,

"I thought the same thing the first time I came here. Don't let the outside fool you wait til you see the inside."

Sabrina heard her doorbell ring and went to answer it, Elliot was there with Olivia. Sabrina was thrilled to see Olivia, she opened the door wide for them to pass and said,

"Come on in you two. Welcome to my home."

As Sabrina gave her the nickel tour, Olivia was shocked at how beautifully homely and comfortable the inside was considering how normal the outside looked. Once done they headed to her comfortable home office. Sabrina said,

"Olivia I am glad you came with Elliot. Assault, no matter what kind it is, affects not only the one attacked but the family."

Olivia nodded, and smiled at the fact Sabrina called her Elliot's family, and said,

"I am going to let Elliot talk to you alone today and just wait out here."

Elliot shook his head as he grabbed her hand and brought her deeper into the office. He said,

"Liv I _**want**_ you to come in with me."

She hesitated. He added,

"Please."

Olivia nodded and sat down beside him as Sabrina sat across from them. Elliot said,

"I was going to wait to call you but I couldn't. This is too much for me to handle."

Sabrina nodded,

"Explain."

Elliot got emotional and said as his voice cracked,

"I am having nightmares about that night and they don't seem to be the same as I remember. I'm not sure if more happened than I remember or if they are a side effect of the AIDS medication."

Sabrina asked,

"Were you on the meds when the first nightmare happened?"

He shook his head,

"Not the first night, I did not start them til the next morning."

Sabrina said,

"So the first one is an actual nightmare, the rest might be questionable but tell me about the first one and we will have a base line for the rest of them."

So he told her about the nightmare exactly as he remembered it and then said,

"It's the erection part that has me confused, I don't know if I got an erection on my own or if Sarah gave me one."

Sabrina asked,

"I know this is going to be hard but what exactly to do you remember about that actual night as you sit here?"

He knew Olivia was beside him, he could feel her watching him. He looked at her as he slid his hand into hers, she squeezed his hand and neither pulled away. As he slid his hand into hers, she smiled she took this as his sign that he needed her just as much as she needed him. He nodded and told his story as he remembered it,

"Well you know everything up til the time I was stuck with the needle and put in the chopper, after that it gets confusing between what is real and what is the nightmare. The only thing that is consistent is Sarah straddling my naked body and grinding against me as she rubbed my bare chest and nipples. She slid her fingers into herself and pushed them in and out as she slid against me, as she is doing this I can hear a light moaning but I don't know if it was coming from me or Sarah or from George who was standing in the corner. Once Sarah pulls her fingers out of herself she slid off me and seemed to come to her senses and be confused when she looked at me, then I hear George say, 'Remember Sarah we are completing the circle.' She then seems to go back into a kind of trance and I hear George breathing hard and rapid as he is looking at my nakedness and she straddles me again, she pushes her fingers into her wetness again as she strokes my erection with her other hand, she then takes her wet fingers and rubs my erection she then wets her thumb and rubs my tip over my opening. During this last part I am screaming for her to stop and George is laughing lightly, just as she is about to slid my erection into her wetness you all showed up and Liv grabbed Sarah off of me as she hit her elbow. The rest you know."

Sabrina said,

"So the confusing unsure part is whether the erection was induced by her touch or your body's response?"

Elliot nodded. Sabrina asked,

"What difference would knowing the answer to that question make to helping you with this situation?"

Elliot cleared his voice,

"I guess I am wondering what it says about me as a man if my body reacted..."

He stopped and Sabrina nodded understanding what he meant. She looked at Olivia who from the look on her face got where he was going with his concerns. Olivia looked at Sabrina glad she had to deal with this situation and not her. Elliot said,

"It has been a while and what if..."

He could not finish as he got a bit embarrassed. Sabrina finished his thought,

"What if you find being tied up exciting?"

He looked sheepishly at Olivia and then nodded at Sabrina. She said,

"Elliot, let me ask you, outside of this incident have you ever consciously wanted to less conventional in the bedroom?"

Elliot shook his head,

"No. I have always been what we called in the precinct very vanilla. But this whole experience really has we wondering..."

Olivia asked,

"Elliot do you remember that case our year together where we had the female victim who was into S&M and Cassidy and Munch were coming down the stairs from the crib and Munch said that it starts with tattoos and then progresses to spanking and further. You showed your Marine tattoo and said 'you guys have finally figured me out'...we all knew you were joking."

Elliot said,

"I remember that. But I don't know..."

Sabrina nodded. She said,

"You need to know that even if you did what things a little different does not mean there is anything wrong with you. But you are not a guy who deals well with nonconventional ideas. Might that be what scares you."

Elliot sat in silence. Olivia asked,

"Have you thought about wanting to try different things with me?"

Elliot shook his head,

"All I think about with you is making love to you every night we are together and waking up with your head on my chest and kissing you telling you I love you."

Olivia said as she squeezed the hand she was still holding,

"I want the same thing and that is what we need to concentrate on."

Sabrina said,

"Your conscious mind remembers everything you experienced while you were awake, your unconscious mind remembers everything else. It is possible that when you were coming out of the drug haze the erection happened. If that is the case than hypnosis might be an answer. I do not personally use hypnosis as you know, but I do think it has its place. And this would be one of those situations. I think if the situation does not become clearer in the next day or so we need to consider hypnosis."

Olivia asked,

"If you don't do or use hypnosis who would do it?"

Elliot nodded. Sabrina said,

"Elliot how are you with Dr. Skoda doing it?"

Elliot always liked Skoda,

"Would you be there through the session? I wouldn't want to wake up and someone say kibble and I start barking..."

Sabrina and Olivia both laughed causing Elliot to laugh. Sabrina said,

"Emil would never do that. Besides I will be there through the whole session."

He said,

"Okay then. I will leave that with you to decide if we need to do it or."

Olivia's mouth dropped open, she kept looking at him, Sabrina noticed and asked,

"Olivia what is wrong?"

She shook her head and said,

"If this had happened even 5 years ago, he would never be doing any of this. He would be going around angry and abusing perps and I would be making excuses for him to cover his ass."

Elliot looked at her and said,

"Liv there is a difference, I want to get better, I know how good I feel when all is right in my world, I don't want that changing. Besides Skoda is good people, he knows me and will get to the root of my problem because he does not make assumptions."

Sabrina said,

"Elliot I know what Olivia is talking about, you may not remember your early days at Greenwood but I do. I witnessed "The poster boy for Anger" as Olivia used to call you. It took us weeks to get you to where you would talk openly and honestly with me and I am glad we are where we are. As for Skoda, I will talk to him and get him on board. I do not see a problem. Now besides the nightmares which we will get under control what else is going on?"

Elliot said,

"Another problem is just the whole idea of being the victim. I hate it. I hate that people see me as one. Nothing is normal. I hate the feeling of being dirty and most of all I hate that my relationship with Olivia is being put on hold."

Olivia thought, and there it is, the elephant in the room. Sabrina said,

"You hate now knowing, first hand, what all your victims, over the years, felt like after they were assaulted. How did you think it was going to be?"

He shook his head,

"I don't know but not like this."

Olivia asked,

"Do you think I see you as a victim? Or that I care that you don't have the want to be physical right now?"

Sabrina saw him hesitate and she said,

"Honesty Elliot."

He looked at Olivia,

"I'm sorry but I think you look at me differently."

Olivia nodded,

"You are right, I do look at you differently, but it is not because of the assault. It is because of all the work you have done to get healthy, and become the best man you can and that is who I see when I look at you. But most of all because you are not shutting down and running."

He got all emotional as he looked at her. He had no words.

Sabrina asked,

"What do you think about what Olivia is saying?"

Elliot shook his head,

"I have no words for this incredible woman or how lucky I am to have her."

He looked at Sabrina,

"It also helps that you burned all my boxes and I haven't had time to replace them."

Sabrina chuckled,

"I made sure they were inaccessible."

He nodded as he sat and looked from Olivia to Sabrina, he shifted in his chair never letting go of Olivia's hand and then said to Sabrina,

"I remember how bad I let things get the first time you and I met. I was so scared this was going to put me back there, even after all the work you and I have done."

Sabrina asked,

"Elliot, do you still feel that way?"

He looked at her as if she had two heads,

"No I don't. The truth be known I trust you more than any other shrink I have ever met."

She said,

"Thank you. I know you will be fine. It helps that I know you, I know how you process things, I know the time frame you work within and I trust you within it. I have no intention of letting you fall over that proverbial edge. Were you near it? Yes. Were you in danger of going over it? Maybe, but again I have no intention of letting you fall over. You are my biggest success story, I am not going to fail you on any count. No tell me how you are eating?"

He nodded and said,

"Well I am taking the HIV protocol and antivirals which are making me nauseous. So to answer your question I am not eating well. Doc Warner suggested 5 or 6 small bland meals a day along with a protein shake."

Sabrina asked,

"Are you doing that?"

Elliot hesitated as he looked at Olivia. Olivia said,

"El, be honest."

He said,

"I eat maybe 3 small meals a day, by small I mean toast or soup. As for the protein shake, they are gross."

Sabrina laughed,

"So no protein shakes at the moment."

He shook his head. She said,

"I actually drink an energy protein shake every morning when I am home, it is like a meal replacement drink. I am going to make you one to try and if you like it I will give you the recipe."

He nodded. Sabrina stood up and headed to the kitchen, Olivia and Elliot followed. Sabrina said,

"We can still talk while I do this."

Sabrina put ice cream, banana, a vitamin mineral powder mix and full fat milk into her blender and blended it. As she poured 3 glasses of it she said,

"You can make any flavour you like, the powder mix comes in strawberry, vanilla and chocolate I use mostly vanilla and just change the flavour of ice cream or add different fruit."

Elliot tasted it, and downed the glass saying,

"That is good, lets just see how long it stays down."

Olivia liked it too. She finished her glass also. Sabrina handed Elliot the recipe and another glass of the shake, he handed the recipe to Olivia who put it in her purse and he downed the second glass of shake. Elliot made another appointment and then they headed off.


	5. Back to Work

As Olivia rolled over to turn off the alarm clock, she realized that Elliot was spooning her and had his good arm around her waist. She felt him move as she did, she turned to face him, he was smiling at her. She knew he had a better night, but still not his best. He only woke up screaming once instead of 3 times like earlier in the week. He had been drinking the energy shakes that Sabrina had shown him and they were agreeing with him and he liked them. He had also agreed to see Sabrina everyday after work til he got rid of his nightmares and got his test results. Sabrina's costs were not cheap and Olivia knew that the Clinic was a favour to George but she was not sure how they would pay her now.

They got up, and dressed. Elliot in his Academy Blues and Olivia in her business suit. She was getting ready in the bathroom and heard the blender, she smiled he was making a shake. She came out and said,

"I am so happy there is something you can drink that fills you that you like."

He smiled, a real smile.

"I wish I knew about these the last time. It would have been so much easier. Don't get me wrong I can't wait to eat real food but these certainly help."

Olivia nodded. As she made toast she asked,

"You ready to go back?"

He nodded,

"Yes I am ready to get back to normal at least for part of my life."

He looked at her and said,

"You seem preoccupied."

She looked at him sheepishly, and said,

"I know you need to see Sabrina to get better, and I want you too because she is amazing for you, for us. But she has to be expensive..."

He shook his head,

"Don't worry. She is expensive but she has agreed to give us free therapy for the rest of our lives or hers, which ever comes first, if needed, with the condition that I let her use my case in her writings and as part of her teachings, when she lectures and does talks. She said, my name would never be used unless I agree to it, but there is much to be taught to other professionals about a case like mine. So I agreed, she will make more money than our sessions will ever cost."

Olivia let out a deep breath as she buttered the hot toast, she said,

"I really didn't want to ask but our benefits cover only so much."

As he swallowed a mouthful of shake, he nodded and said,

"When I finally woke up from my month long hibernation at Greenwood, I met Sabrina in her office for my first session and saw her picture on the back of a book and knew she was out of my league financially. I told her that there was no way I could afford her fees and she said, 'what fees? I started doing this as a favour to George but when I read your police jacket and then when I saw the state you were in I decided that if you would let me use your case in my writings and lectures I would not charge you. We will call it research.' So I agreed."

Olivia poured her shake into her 'to go' cup as Elliot did the same thing with the rest of his. He grabbed a couple of straws and pushed them into the opening of each of their cups. She looked at him, he laughed,

"Sabrina does this. I always wondered what she had in her cup. Now I know."

Olivia had made them lunches the night before while he caught up on his class's progress. She handed him a bag. He said,

"Wow, this brings back memories."

She laughed. He turned serious for a moment and asked her,

"Are you okay with going back to work?"

She nodded and answered,

"Like you, I need to get back to some sort of normalcy. And besides I can't wait to hear John's stories from the classroom."

Elliot chuckled, and said,

"Sabrina told me he did great replacing me. Apparently he told the recruits why he believes in conspiracies so much. She knows why but told me I had to ask the class. Knowing Munch the story will be good but honest."

Olivia kissed him on the cheek since he still could not kiss her on the lips because of George's kiss he wanted to wait, until the test results.

**AT THE ACADEMY**

Elliot walked into his office, it was just as he had left it except Munch had put a framed picture of himself and Fin on his desk, when he looked at the picture from the look on Munch's face it looked like the picture had been taken at a crime scene. There was also a picture of Cragen and a team shot of Liv, John, Fin, Cragen, Alex, Casey and Melinda, they were all his friends. There was also a note and a file on his desk, addressed to him he opened it,

_Elliot,_

_Your class took good care of me this week. I answered their questions as they asked them about the outcome of the case. As for your situation I leave that to you, they have a lot of questions. I have left a copy of the closed file and the outcomes, as well, Babs asked me to update her information for you and wants you to call whenever you have time she would like to talk to you. I left you some pictures, never forget who your friends are. I really miss the days when the 4 of us went for dinner and drinks. We had some good times. Finally, and most importantly, Thank you for letting me take your class for the week, I really enjoyed it and I think they learnt a lot._

_John_

_P.S. Thanks for not walking away._

The note brought a smile to his face, John was such a good guy, a good friend. So was Fin but John took an interest in things outside of work, he was always good to his kids especially the twins, he said they fascinated him because he always wondered how two people could be born at the same time and look so much alike but be so different. As he flipped through the file he heard voices, his recruits were ready and on time. He made sure his lunch was in his bar fridge, he took his cup of shake and the file and walked across the hall to his classroom, as he looked around he realized the only thing that had changed was John had left a framed picture of John F. Kennedy on the wall. He looked at it and laughed, he knew it was going to be a good day. When his 6 recruits saw him they all excitedly took their seats and were quiet, just as Elliot was about to speak their was a light knock on the door, he looked over, it was the Chief of Ds. The Chief said,

"Sorry for interrupting, Detective Stabler on your first day back but I will be sitting in on your class."

Elliot was surprised, and suddenly nervous, as he nodded,

"Absolutely, take a seat. I was just about to start. Class this is Chief Muldrew, he is in charge of the detectives, in other words, he is the Chief of Ds. He and I are well acquainted. Chief did you want to say anything before we start."

Muldrew nodded and said as he took a seat,

"I usually visit and sit in on each class once during their training period, I like to keep up on what is being taught and get to know the new recruits and transferees. With all your excitement and adventures over the past 6 weeks, this morning is the first time slot that was available, so it is your turn, if you have questions feel free to ask otherwise just ignore me. Pretend I am not here."

Elliot chuckled as he sat on the front of his desk. He looked at Officer Jones and said,

"Jones good to see you back. I understand you got hit in the leg and there were no issues. What did the doctor say?"

Jones,

"Well Teach..."

Jones looked over at the Chief of D's and then said,

" I mean, Detective Stabler the doctor said I was grazed and no lasting damage. This is my first day back. He said I was clear to go only because we are in class for the next six weeks giving it plenty of time to fully heal."

Elliot nodded and said,

"We have hand-to-hand in 3 weeks, so we will reassess then."

He took a sip of his shake and said,

"Sargent Munch left me a note. You all made a great impression on him which I am glad to hear he also noted that he had answered all the questions you asked about the case, but not about me. So that is where we will begin, who has questions?"

All hands went up, the Chief looked around impressed. Elliot said,

"Officer Wentworth."

Chester asked,

"I personally think being able to follow a real case was exceptional, everything you taught us we saw except one thing. You let us in on every aspect of the case why were we not allowed in on your medical examination and rape kit after your assault since it was part of the case and a big part of what SVU is about?"

Elliot could feel the Chief of Ds watching him. He said,

"Until your question, I did not even realize you were not part of that, that part happened so fast it is a blur to me and Dr. Ross got me out of there so fast it never even dawned on me. You are right you all should have been there. I will talk to Dr. Warner and see if she will come in and do a demonstration of an exam. Did anyone wonder the same thing?"

They all nodded. Muldrew put up his hand, Elliot chuckled as he said,

"Chief?"

He said,

"In defence of what happened with your 'Teach', when Captain Cragen came to me and explained the situation and I approved it for you all to experience this field trip, I called Dr. Ross and told her to protect him at all costs. He still has the highest closure rate of all my detectives, and he paid a high price to get it, after he retired I knew he would be perfect for this position and I wanted him protected at all costs. Dr. Ross was only doing what I asked her to do considering none of us expected him to be in any real danger. We were all wrong."

Elliot was shocked at what he was hearing. He was totally taken aback, he said,

"Thanks."

Chief,

"I only speak the truth."

Elliot smiled and asked,

"Any other questions?"

They all put their hands up, Elliot said,

"Okay since everyone has questions, what we will do is starting with Officer Sanchez here in the front we will go up and down the rows until all questions are answered."

He nodded at her, Sanchez asked,

"How did you finally know it was Dr. Huang?"

Elliot,

"That was Detective Benson, when Sarah said she saw the doctor talking to her and Detective Amarro it clicked for Olivia, because the only person she spoke to outside of the victim whom she was there to see was Dr. Huang. She remembered it the day Dr. Ross went for lunch with us."

Jones said,

"The day we all went back to my place to get the recorded messages. Do you know if we were being followed that day?"

Elliot nodded,

"Yes you were. By Doc Huang, he wanted to get the tape before you got it to Morales in TARU."

Brown said,

"I knew it, I felt like we were being watched."

Elliot said,

"Excellent lesson in what you just said Officer Brown. Always follow your gut when you are chasing the clues..."

Brown interrupted and said,

"Sergeant Munch said that was one of the biggest reasons you and Detective Benson were such good partners. You both followed the clues but you have an amazing gut instinct that was seldom wrong, sometimes to the point where you got to the 'doer' before the clues did and then would have to backtrack."

Elliot,

"That is true, actually, and that happens often when you have a really good partner. Sometimes we would go and talk to a suspect and then something they say or do just does not gel for one of us or both of us and we look again and bingo we have the doer but not the proof."

Elliot shook his head and chuckled as he did he saw Muldrew nod as he looked down writing. He looked at the next recruit,

"Officer Bennett."

She asked,

"How are you since this all happened?"

Elliot took a deep breath and said,

"I could blow it over and say I am fine, but that would not be teaching you anything. So I will answer honestly as I can at this point..."

Just before he could Sabrina tried to make a quiet entrance into the room, but failed and said,

"Sorry I am late, but do not stop on my account."

Elliot nodded, he said,

"To answer the question how am since all this happened, I am doing better than that night. I am seeing Sabrina everyday til I am done the AIDS protocol. It and the antivirals are making me sick, and the whole experience has left me with nightmare, which I am happy to report have gone from 3 a night to just 1 last night, but Doc Warner and Doc Ross have given me suggestions on how to help it and they are working. The biggest thing I learnt out of all of this is what it is like to be the victim?"

He looked at Sabrina then said,

"Since there is a big chunk of this case missing for all of you, I think I need to go back a bit. Now most of you were in the squad room when I got taken out at gunpoint. What you may not have seen was Sarah had a syringe which she hit me with in the leg and it knocked me out. The pilot came down and threw me over his shoulder and took me to the chopper I was out before he hit the stairs. Next thing I know I am waking up tied to a table in nothing but my boxers. I hear George say to Sarah, 'We are completing the circle.' He said it twice and that was when I realized it was the trigger, at one point my casted arm hit Sarah's shoulder when she was tying my arm down and she seemed to come out of the trance and that was when I heard George say the phrase again and she was back in the trance, by that time I was fully tied. Even then I figured that Sabrina had worked out the triggers and that Cragen had gotten TARU to track my phone and there would be someone in the air with one GPS and someone driving with another GPS keeping contact with the chopper. So I figured if I caused enough of a distraction I would be safe until help arrived, unfortunately I was wrong and when Sarah got naked and straddled me, I got scared. I have been in bad situations before, I've had a gun to my head but Olivia was there and honestly taking a bullet or being stabbed scares me 100 times less than being infected with an incurable disease. If the disease is genetic there is nothing you can do about it but when it is transmittable that is a whole different cup of tea."

Marlow asked,

"We all heard what she wanted to do to you when you first talked to her. Did she succeed?"

Elliot shrugged,

"There was no penetration but she did leave her fluids on me where they can be transmitted that is why I have to take the antivirals and protocol medication for at least a month. I have three weeks left."

Chester,

"So you were scared?"

Elliot nodded,

"Absolutely. I had no way out, plus don't forget I still had broken ribs which I didn't know if they were rebroken or not but they were sore. Plus the other things you think about when you know your life is going to be changed forever."

Jones asked,

"I guess it makes you think about your wife or girlfriend, kids if you have any?"

Elliot nodded,

"Anyone who says they don't take their family to work with them in this job is lying. Special Victims are young kids, rape victims, senior citizens – since most of us have either significant others, kids, siblings, parents or grandparents, we are all affected. There is a reason why detectives are rotated out every 2 years."

Brown said,

"Munch said, that you, he, Fin and Benson all worked together for 12 years and he said that after all that time one would think he would know everything about all of you but he said not true. He said you were the only one married in the group, but everyone tried to keep their personal lives away from the job."

Elliot nodded and said,

"I was a cop for 8 years before joining Special Victims. I was the youngest officer promoted to detective at that time I had been with the unit 6 years before getting Olivia as a partner, and married for 15 years with 4 kids between the ages of 15 and 7. 3 years later, the cases are getting worse, the hours longer and I stop talking about work at home, I see my kids in every child victim, I see my daughters in the young rape victims, my wife had enough of my not talking and my anger, she wanted a divorce we separated for 2 years and where divorced for 1 year, then after those 3 years apart we got back together, we had a fifth child who is now 5. The day I shot Jenna, something inside me changed and my wife could not deal with it, I went for treatment she filed for divorce. Two years later, I am divorced and finally getting back on track and this happens. On the positive side of it all, I get to spend more time with my youngest and be more of a father to him. And because of my previous therapy I have an amazing shrink. When you look at the rest of my co workers, Fin never talks about his life outside of work, Olivia never had a long term relationship because of this job, Munch basically just gave up, and I think it was his belief in conspiracy theories that kept him sane."

He nodded towards Sabrina as Sanchez asked

"Are all the cases this emotional? And how do you get past something like this?"

Elliot said,

"All cases are emotional on a different level, some make you sick, some make you angry, but they are all devastating. This is a hard job to talk about and for people to understand, my advice to all of you is to have outside interests and friends who are not on the job so that when you see them it is not shop talk. As for a spouse or significant other, you need to find one that understands the long hours and the fact you don't want to talk about it. For me, I have good people around me and Olivia gets the hours and the job and even though she is the one still working it, I understand and it makes our relationship stronger because she knows I am not going to give her a hard time about the job she will never have to explain why she has to cancel plans to work and so on. As for getting past this situation, the one thing I learnt from 2 years of therapy is that admitting you need help and asking for it are the first steps. Despite everything that Dr. Huang did to me the one good thing he did was get me to Dr. Ross, I wouldn't be here right now if it weren't for her. It will take me some time but I will be fine. Dealing with living victims is a hard job and you need a really good support system around you, no one is an island and you spend so much time with the people you work with that they become like a second family minus the personal baggage. You have to remember you are meeting people during the worst 15 time of their lives, and they are looking to you to fix it or at least make it better as fast as possible and sometimes that takes days, or months and even years. You go in doing the job like you would want it done if you were in their shoes, for me I would think, if this was one of my kids how would I want it handled and that is what I do. Mind you, it has gotten me in trouble with IAB and the higher ups but..."

Muldrew nodded and chuckled. Marrow asked,

"All the time you were a detective did you not go for therapy during that time? Is our mental health monitored?"

Elliot said,

"After the first year that Olivia and I were partners we had a commission called the Warren Commission they decided that they were going to do biyearly psychological testing on all officers to weed out the bad cops and help those good ones on the edge. SVU were the guinea pigs, I told the shrink that I fantasized about killing the perps. The commission took it to be I wanted to kill the suspects, they suspended me for a week. I was cleared but as the cases got worse and my home life deteriorated I got angry, my anger started coming out, on more than one occasion I was either sent home or put on medical leave until I was cleared. I was always cleared. But after that first shrink evaluation I did not trust shrinks. But through my career I had three very defining moments that forever changed me..."

He looked around the class and then said,

"I have never talked about either one of them to anyone, not even Olivia or Sabrina but I will now because I think it is very important. We had a case about 7 years into our partnership where we had a young brunette raped at the port authority where the out of town buses come in. When Liv and I got to the scene she rode in the ambulance with the victim and I was going to work the scene when a retired officer came up to me and said he knew who did the rape. We went back to the squad and he and I talked, he said the perp Ray Shankle had just been released from jail and he described the way Ray raped his victims without knowing the full description of our victim. They were the exact same, Fin and Olivia brought Shankle in while I went to the archives to pull his previous cases and they were a match. Because Shankle had not seen me I went to meet with his parole officer and while waiting I met Ray he was there for his first appointment. He thought I was a con like him so I let him believe that, I got the parole officer to play along so my identity would not be blown in front of Ray. Parole put me undercover with Ray in his group therapy and the same halfway house. I befriended Ray and before he had gone away for 20 years he had a partner, I wanted to be his new one. Fin and CSU rigged up a van for me, which Ray gave me the money for, after one of our group sessions the shrink held me back and told me I had more anger than most and I needed to learn to control it. When I came out Ray was waiting and had a young girl tied up in the back of the van, we drove to his uncle's warehouse where Ray wanted us to rape this girl. He wanted me to go first so he could watch, I told him I couldn't do it in front of other people, once he left I got the girl out of there unharmed. Ray got pissed and wanted to shoot me, I told him I was a cop, he cheap shot me and knocked me out. I woke up handcuffed to the van mirror, he told me that he was a good judge of character and that he did not know how he could be wrong about me. He said that some of the crap I said in therapy was bullshit, but other stuff it wasn't. He told me that the only difference between him and I was that I had a much more anger in me than he did. The fact that a rapist thought I had a more anger than he did made me madder. The second thing was when my old radio car partner's son got in trouble for assault because of his 'roid' rage and I tried to help get his son off but Olivia called me on it and the Captain put me on vacation after talking to the parents, I told them that pressing charges may not be to their daughter's benefit. Anyway, Olivia came to my house and told me about the hearing the next day and I showed up, Pete grabbed his son after he was released and took him to the washroom and started beating him up. I went in and beat Pete up as I turned to walk away I saw my reflection in the mirror and had to get out of there. Olivia asked me if I was ok, I shook my head and said no and walked out, ending up at Doc Hendrix office. After going into therapy with her I learned to handle my anger but it never went away, I just buried it deeper inside and was able to stay calmer. Once I met Doc Ross she blew those boxes up and made me get rid of the anger and learn to properly handle it. And the third, a guy named Rickett, he is jail now but he used his aunt's house as a safehouse where he raped and murdered young girls, I brought him in to the precinct and screwed with the lights, made his chair uneven and turned up the temperature because I wanted him to ask us for things and also to make him uncomfortable to throw him off his game. At one point, because I was getting no where with him, I ordered stinky food to throw him off but nothing phased him. In the end since he would not tell us outright where the bodies were and he ran out the clock on his 24 hours I turned down the temperature, and gave him the foot for his chair to even it out. He then talked because he knew he had won and he said to me, 'you talk about my anger but you have more than I do. The difference between us is you have controls, your wife, kids this job, your captain, your partner, what would happen to you if they all went away?' I looked at Rickett and said, 'I'd be you'. We all went home and the next day in the squad we all reassessed what Rickett did say in interrogation and came up with his aunt, Liv and I pursued that lead and found the 'aunt' and her house. When we went down into the basement we found all the evidence we needed to convict him, but even better he walked in with another girl who was screaming. Olivia shot him in the leg and we saved the girl. I had my gun on him and I asked Liv after why she took the shot and she told me that if she hadn't I would have killed him. And that is why she was such a good partner."

Elliot looked at the time and said,

"Okay class I will see you all in 15 minutes. Have a good break."

After the class left Muldrew and Sabrina still sat, Elliot closed the door and said to Muldrew,

"I assume you are here for more than just an assessment of my teaching skill..."

Muldrew nodded,

"You would be right. During the past week, I have spoken to all your recruits about their experience with working a real case since this is the first time it has ever been done. They loved it and thought it should be part of every training class because now they know what they are getting into. The only disappointment was them not seeing a full rape kit being done. As for your teaching, they love that you show and explain the job and not teach it, you tell them about cases you have worked and ask them how they would handle it. They also like that John came in for the week because he added to that experience. So I think that for the rest of the time you are teaching this course I want to work with the 16th and have you take your class on a real case."

Elliot looked surprised,

"So I passed the assessment?"

Muldrew nodded,

"Absolutely. You know Stabler, I read your jacket and know about your anger issues I am glad you got help and are not shy about talking about it, we need this generation of officers to be well informed and not afraid to talk about what is bothering them especially if a case gets to be too much. And for the record, IAB had more of a problem with your style of detective work than I ever did. It is not only a Judge that can actually appreciate your style, you got the job done and it shows in your closure rate."

Muldrew got up and said chuckling as he headed for the door,

"I fully expect you to teach them your way of doing the job, but hopefully in a way that will keep IAB off of them."

Elliot laughed,

"So I guess I am coming back next year?"

Muldrew nodded and said,

"Teaching agrees with you. You seem happy and that makes me and the academy happy. With that being said this job is yours til you retire from it. I have one request and that is I would like you to have your class join you the next time you do your PTSD presentation with Doc Ross here. I know you are coming to the end with this class I want to you make a point of doing your presentation with them. I would also like you to include it in your teaching curriculum for the rest of your classes."

Elliot asked,

"Any particular reason for that?"

He said as he stood up,

"Everyone at 1PP has heard your presentation, including myself, and think it is a very valuable teaching tool that all young and veteran officers should hear before they get out of the academy or retraining and not after they are affected."

Elliot nodded,

"I will work it out."

With his hand on the door knob, Muldrew asked,

"This rape kit you are going to get Dr. Warner to show your class...who will be the victim?"

Elliot looked at Sabrina who looked at him and raised her eyebrows. He said,

"I guess in this case it would be me."

The Chief looked from Sabrina to Elliot and asked,

"Are you sure?"

Elliot nodded,

"For this case, they should have seen mine and since we are not part of another case this semester, it would only make sense."

The Chief looked at Sabrina and said,

"I hope you will be there for it..."

Sabrina nodded,

"Absolutely."

The Chief then asked,

"Summer break is coming up, do you have any plans?"

Elliot nodded,

"Olivia and I are going to take off for the summer. Not sure where yet but somewhere nice."

Muldrew nodded,

"Good. And Stabler I am glad you finally got your anger issues under control and are with Benson, 14 years is a long time to keep a girl waiting, be good to her."

Elliot watched his back as he walked out the door grinning. Sabrina looked at Elliot as he smirked and shrugged.


	6. After the Break

**A/N: Thank you for all the great reviews, I appreciate them. Just a note to one of the reviewers who appreciated that I am doing quick updates, I knew I was doing this sequel but time was not on my side so for National Novel Writing Month (November) I decided to do the sequel for the competition of 50.000 words in 30 days. I started on November 1****st**** and finished the competition on November 26****th**** so right now the whole story is basically written it just needs to be fine tuned and edited, so I will post each chapter as I refine it. So the whole story should be posted in about 10 days. Again Thank you for taking the time to come on this journey with me...**

**Chapter 6**

**After the Break...**

Everyone was back after the class, the Chief of D's had left and so did Sabrina, she told him she would see him at the end of the day at his appointment. Once everyone was settled, Elliot asked,

"Does anyone know why I told you all about the three defining moments in my life that changed everything for me?"

He looked at his six recruits, they all looked at each other and Brown said,

"So that we know what we are up against?"

Elliot nodded and said,

"I want you to know that the perps are reading us as much as we are reading them and they probably have us figured out faster. We all have things happen to us in life that change us on a daily basis and even when he think we are hiding it we are not someone sees it, some people don't say anything, like your coworkers and other people use it, like defense lawyers and perps. This job is a fine line we walk, for as much as we want to keep our personal life out of it, there are times when it is essential to use it. There are times when we can use it to our benefit like when dealing with innocent kids to help them trust us, but there are also times when it can be used against us like when I was going through my first divorce, I hadn't told anyone I worked with not even my Captain or Liv, they found out when a defence lawyer told me I was being biased against her client because my wife had filed for legal separation and had taken the kids and moved out."

Sanchez said,

"So we need to walk a fine line between normal and hero."

Elliot said,

"This job is like a game of chess, you need to be three moves ahead to win the case. But it is also a puzzle with a lot of moving parts. It all starts with the victim and how you relate to them because they are the key to getting the perp, once you have the perp it is how you relate to them that gets you the evidence you need to convict them, and its the ADA you have on the case who lets you know if you have gotten them enough solid evidence to convict the perp. Now the victim and the ADA want you to succeed at getting the perp but the perp will do everything they can to make you fail at getting them but in the end most perps make mistakes and are caught. Others have good defense lawyers that get them off but eventually they do make mistakes again and are not so lucky."

Elliot turned and took a paper off of his desk and turned back to the class. He said,

"Earlier I was answering your questions about my well being. Now I have a question for all of you, why does Munch believe in Conspiracy Theories?"

The class laughed. Wentworth said,

"He said you would probably ask."

Elliot laughed,

"We have all asked him and he has never told anyone til this class and I am just curious

**One on One with Sabrina...**

Elliot sat at his desk in his office, he was finishing up his summary of the day. As he closed his book, he was interrupted by a knocking on the door, he looked up to see Sabrina. She asked,

"You all done for the day?"

Elliot smiled and nodded when he saw her. He stood and waved her in,

"Yes I am. Come on in. Have a seat?"

He moved from the back of his desk to close the door and sat down in the chair beside her. She said,

"I figured since I am at the academy it would be easier to talk to you here, if that is okay with you?"

He nodded,

"I am more than okay with this. I got a message from Olivia that she is working late so I have no plans right now. I am going to bring her dinner before heading home later though."

Sabrina nodded and said,

"Before we start I am curious why you did not tell me about the 3 incidents you mentioned in class and secondly, why did you tell the class about them?"

Elliot nodded he had fully expected her to call him on his admission,

"I told them because I want them going into this job seeing it for what it is. I see a little of me in Marlow and Brown and I don't want them going all Wyatt Earp when they get into their squads. I want them to know that the perps are reading us as much as we are reading them and they probably have us figured out faster. It was just a lesson for the class it seemed like the right place to insert it."

Sabrina nodded. She then said,

"I was glad that Olivia came with you for that first meeting. It made me realize how much I really need to talk to you alone."

Elliot nodded,

"I agree. I now know why Olivia never could tell me about Sealview. Having this happen has really shaken me to my foundation."

Sabrina said,

"It has been 10 days since it all happened how are you doing now?"

Elliot stretched as he thought before he spoke. Sabrina watched as she saw his discomfort level rise. She said,

"Honesty please."

He nodded. Honesty was all she had ever asked from him,

"I am doing better but still having a hard time with some things."

Sabrina nodded. She knew Elliot was a guy who needed to control all things around him and that losing control was a hard thing for him to handle,

"Start where you are comfortable."

Elliot,

"I still feel dirty even after taking 2 showers a day. I have even showered with dish soap and that has not helped. Melinda gave me some surgical soap, you know the kind they ask patients to shower with before they have surgery, and nothing. I still can't bring myself to go to bed naked like I usually do, because I don't want Olivia to feel this dirt, I still can't kiss her on the lips..."

Sabrina saw his hesitation and said,

"You know she understands?"

Elliot,

"She says she does..."

He looked away and then said,

"You know that Olivia and I had just started getting comfortable with being more than work partners. We were finally starting to take that step to forever and then this happened. Now I am not sure where to go from here. I mean we fall asleep in each others arms at night and when I wake up she has her head on my chest but..."

Sabrina,

"But what?"

Elliot blushed and was a little embarrassed,

"I am so scared she is going to say she can't do this, and then I will lose her again. I could deal with it the first time because I walked away and it was up to me to win her back..."

He smiled his cocky smile and continued,

"And I did win her back to a certain degree and now this, she really does say she understands but I really don't know..."

Sabrina,

"You do not believe her?"

Elliot hesitated,

"I do believe her. I really don't know that it is fair for me to ask her to go through this with me. It's my issue not hers."

Sabrina asked,

"What do you mean?"

Elliot got up to get a couple of bottles of water, and as he handed one to Sabrina and opened his, he said,

"You know she still has not really talked to me about Sealview, she opened the door but she never really walked through. I actually thought that with her coming with me to see you and my being honest about my experience would allow her to feel comfortable enough to open up, maybe she never will be able to. As for me, I just don't know how long this will take for me to get over it, or even if it is fair to ask her to wait."

Sabrina put her open bottle of water down and asked,

"Why is it important to you for her talk about Sealview?"

Elliot nodded,

"Because it became a defining moment for her. She changed after it and it made me more protective of her. She did things that younger Olivia would never have done. I want her to be able to talk about it and not have it as a 'what if' between us. I want our relationship to go forward based on today and not on the past and I feel like Sealview is still part of today."

Sabrina,

"So you don't think she has fully dealt with it?"

Elliot,

"She is a doer and a helper. She will do anything for anyone and help them as much as possible, but she doesn't allow others to help her the same way. She has been on her own for so long that she doesn't know how to fully allow someone in. And to be honest I was the same way until I met you. I am hoping since you offered us both help that she will take you up on it."

Sabrina nodded and said,

"Elliot, do not rush things, I promise you that before you two go away, things will be much better. I know I do not know Olivia very well but from everything you have told me about her and from what I witnessed at my office and during the case, I see they way she looks at her and I saw the way she went from being cold with her new coworkers to a huge sigh of relief when she saw you. So I know you are important to her, we have time I promise you we will get he to talk but on her terms not ours. It can't be rushed or obvious it needs to be natural. Furthermore, I understand putting the physical part of your relationship on hold until you have your test results but do not put the emotional part on hold. You can be intimate without being physical, just show her how much you love her by your actions and by your words. I promise you the rest will come."

Elliot nodded and Sabrina asked,

"How is your appetite?"

Elliot smiled,

"Better, the shakes every day help. Still don't have my normal appetite but at least the mini meals are keeping me semi nourished, unlike last time."

Sabrina,

"And the nightmares?"

Elliot,

"Not as bad, but still there. I still see the erection part in my nightmare but still don't recall how it happened."

Sabrina,

"Okay I will talk to Dr. Skoda and arrange for him to meet us. How are the ribs and arm?"

Elliot said looking at the cast on his arm,

"Itchy, the latest x ray shows they are healing well though, almost done. 4 weeks left on the cast then I should be able to have it removed."

**AT THE PRECINCT**

Olivia was walking out of the interrogation room with Fin, she was rubbing her eyes. Fin said,

"How are things with Elliot?"

She looked at him and sighed,

"Good considering everything. He went back to work today whether he was ready to or not."

Fin said,

"I'd ask you if he was talking to you about what happened but I know Stabler well enough to know he is not."

Olivia stopped and pulled Fin into Interrogation 2 which was empty. She said,

"I know this will surprise you as much as it did me, but he is talking about it. He actually asked me to sit in on a session he had with Sabrina and he talked openly about it. He even opened the door for me to talk about Sealview and I couldn't."

Fin was surprised but pleased,

"You know I am surprised but I am really pleased."

She asked him,

"Fin, whether you believe it or not, you and Elliot are similar in that you are men of very few words. I don't know how to help him without pressuring him. If this happened to you how would you be helped?"

Fin shrugged and said,

"Liv, I saw as much as you did of what happened to El that night. And if that were me I would be mad as hell and frustrated. First of all he gets taken out at gunpoint, jabbed with a needle by a third party, stripped and tied to a table, and sexually touched against his will. I will never forget the fear I heard in his voice when he screamed 'Stop' as I was running down the stairs from the roof. He is always the tough guy the one who takes the lumps and saves you more than you save him, like I save Munch..."

Olivia started to object when Fin put up his hand,

"Liv, you are more than capable of taking care of yourself but you are much stronger with Elliot beside you. You have proven that since he has been gone, the last two years you have not been yourself. When he came back for this one case you were the old Liv, top of your game and taking no prisoners, even Amarro and Rollins finally saw who they heard you were. The thing you really need to know is I know you have never told anyone, not even El, outside of therapy what happened to you at Sealview but I think now is the time you really need to talk to El, I think he needs to hear your story and you need to tell it, it will help you get fully over it. That could quite possibly help him know you understand. I know it would for me, other than that I would just need to know you will be there no matter what and that I could count on you to stand by my side when the going gets tough."

Olivia nodded, knowing he was right she was not over Sealview, it was a matter of trust and she had lost a lot of it. Talking about it was one thing but she had never fully dealt with it. She looking curiously at Fin and asked,

"Fin, you never asked me about it. Why?"

Fin looked her in the eye,

"Was never my business, my business was to get your butt out of there unharmed. I am glad I got there before he could he went any further."

She looked at him. He said,

"Liv I walked in when his pants were open and his Johnson out and he had his hand on the back of your head trying to put himself in your mouth."

She got embarrassed. Fin said,

"My only goal was to get him away from you."

Olivia said,

"Why did I never think about what you saw? Why did you never mention it?"

Fin said shrugging,

"Because I knew how close you and Elliot were and I really thought you would talk to him. I knew you two were doing movie nights and dinners since he was divorced..."

Fin saw the look on Olivia's face at his admission and he smiled,

"Come on you two were the closest thing to being married without being married. But I never said anything to anyone not even Munch, I figured you two would work it out. I never realized you did not talk to him."

Olivia said,

"It wasn't because he didn't ask, because he did and always left the door open for me to tell him, but I went to therapy and then as time went by I just didn't see the need."

Fin said shaking his head,

"You do know you two really are a lot alike, right?"

Olivia looked at his curiously,

"What do you mean?"

Fin shook his head,

"You two tell each other everything but what really matters. You don't tell him about Sealview, he doesn't call after shooting Jenna, so far you are even. But seeing the way he is now since meeting Munch's fantasy girlfriend, Doc Ross, I think now might be the time for you to open up to him and get it out of your relationship."

Olivia looked at him,

"Dr. Ross has offered me her services anytime I need them. She has also told me if I wanted her present when I decide to talk to El she would be more than happy to be there."

Fin said,

"Liv he didn't walk away this time. I think that says a lot."

As Fin turned to walk away, she stopped him and said,

"Fin, you really are a good friend to both of us and whether he says it or not, El really appreciates and trusts you. I have to say I'm blown away by how therapy has tamed the tiger in him."

Fin smiled and added,

"Liv, we both know that therapy tamed the hyaena in him and made him a tiger."

Olivia just shook her head as they both laughed..

As they both walked into the squadroom, Olivia saw Elliot sitting at her desk, Fin cleared his voice and said quietly to Olivia,

"Times they are a changing."

Olivia smiled as she patted Fin's arm, and said,

"Thank you."

Olivia went over to his desk, as Elliot saw her he stood up and gave her a hug and smile, he said,

"I know you said you were going to be working late so I wanted to bring you a fresh coffee so you don't have to drink the swill Munch brews and a Reuben and fries."

Munch looked at him offended,

"Hey!Hey!Hey! It has taken me years to perfect that swill."

The four of them laughed. Olivia hugged him,

"Thank you so much. I am getting hungry."

She took a drink of the coffee and savoured the taste. She looked at Elliot and asked,

"How was your day?"

Elliot nodded, as Olivia started to eat,

"Good. Actually really good. Muldrew came into my class today and told me that I passed my evaluation with flying colours and the teaching job is mine until I retire from the academy..."

Olivia was so thrilled,

"Oh my god El that is excellent, I am so happy to hear that."

Her excitement over his announcement caused Fin and Munch to look at her. She looked at Elliot, he nodded and said,

"I just told Liv that Muldrew told me that teaching agrees with me and that I passed my evaluation with flying colours and the job is mine til I retire from the Academy. Oh and John the class told me in front of Muldrew that they want you as their substitute teacher if I need to take any more time off."

John said,

"You know I have to say I enjoyed my time in the classroom and I would love to do it again anytime. But did the Chief okay anymore field trips after Jones got shot and all your adventures?"

Elliot nodded,

"On the class's recommendation he suggested I do one case a year with each class because they found it very beneficial since they were able to see what I was teaching put into practical use. He said he would arrange it with Cragen to do them at this precinct. The only thing is, until today it did not dawn on me that the class did not see a full rape kit being done, which they want to see so I am going to ask Warner if she can come to my class and show one."

Fin asked,

"Who is going to be the victim?"

Elliot said shyly,

"I guess that would be me, since it is mine they should have seen."

His former coworkers were surprised and did not hide it. John said,

"I have to tell you, your female officers wondered whether or not you had ever taken part in the policeman charity calender. I told them no, but that they could start a campaign to get you into it."

Elliot said looking horrified causing the whole squad to laugh,

"You are joking right John?"

John just shrugged and walked away, smirking all the way, saying,

"They will see a lot less in a calender than a rape kit."

Elliot blushed, leaving everyone laughing harder.


	7. The Test Results

The 3 weeks had gone by fast, Elliot was seeing Sabrina 5 days a week and taking her advice. He had started sleeping barefoot and in shorts, he found himself spooning her at night and putting his arm around her waist. Olivia was working crazy hours and sometimes she would come home and use him as a sounding board when she was stuck and he would tell her how to get unstuck. And when she went to work and told Amarro to just follow her lead, their suspect would break and leave Amarro wondering how she knew to do that. She heard him tell Munch and Fin what happened and they both laughed, Munch would then look at Olivia and say,

"Tell Stabler thanks."

Olivia had gotten her vacation time approved and they booked a month long holiday to Hawaii, she wouldn't need to get her passport, but when Elliot found out she didn't have one he went to Agent Williams and asked her if she could get it done as fast as she had for him when he went to Prague for the Justice Department. She did and within 24 hours Elliot had it in his hand. When he gave it to Olivia he said with a smile,

"I know we don't need it for Hawaii but I want us to have all options available in case we decide to do something a little different. But I can't wait to see you in a grass skirt."

She just laughed and nodded as she said,

"You never cease to amaze me and I can't wait to see you swim with the sharks."

He was surprised,

"Really? You know, that is going to be fun. As for the passport, I am taking mine too, we need to be prepared because we have 4 weeks off and who said we had to stay on the Hawaiian Islands the whole time?!"

**THE TEST RESULTS**

Today though was the day of getting the test results back. They got to the outpatient department of Mercy hospital where Elliot was going to get his arm and ribs xrayed and taken care of. Then they had to go to see Doc Warner for the blood test results since she had run them. As they sat in the white sterile examination room, Olivia looked at Elliot, he had lost a few pounds in the last month but his energy level was okay since he had been drinking the protein shakes. Melinda had told him to make sure he was using regular fat ice cream and full fat milk in his shakes to get all the benefits he could. He had tried to make himself different soft foods, like steel cut oatmeal and soups, he seemed to keep them down. The doctor came into the room,

"Good morning Mr. Stabler. How are the ribs and arm doing?"

Elliot straightened up and said,

"They seem to be okay, no pain in my ribs and my arm is itchy..."

The doctor nodded,

"Both are good signs. Let's get you to x ray and just make sure. If all is okay with the arm I will remove your case."

Once the volunteer came to take him to x ray, Olivia went to find a coffee machine. She found the cafeteria and got them both a coffee, she saw Dr. Hendrix in the line getting a sandwich. Dr. Hendrix saw Olivia also and came over.

"Hey Olivia. How are you? I haven't seen you in a long time."

Olivia paid for the coffee and got out of line to talk to her,

"It has been a long time. I am doing really good. How about you?"

She smiled,

"I am doing really well. I am still in private practice and just here to see a patient. How about you?Are you here on a case?"

Olivia said,

"No. Actually I am here with Elliot, he is just getting his ribs and arm xrayed to see if his cast can be removed."

She saw her old friend's surprised look. Hendrix said,

"How is Elliot? I haven't seen him in a long time, but I heard through the grapevine he is seeing Dr. Sabrina Ross and she is doing wonders with him. I also heard he is teaching at the academy since he retired, and I also about his abduction during your last case. The whole medical community is buzzing about Dr. George Huang and what he did to Elliot."

Olivia nodded,

"I know Elliot saw you for quite a while after his fight with Pete Brezlin. You helped him because after he started seeing you regularly his anger was well in check. He even got back together with Kathy, but I credit you with his calmness, he even got to where he fought for the perps that he did not feel were guilty. He was a changed man. And then Jenna, it was just too much, it brought everything back and instead of jumping hoops for the department he put in his papers and retired."

She nodded,

"I had heard that. Word has it that George got him in to see Sabrina though."

Olivia nodded,

"He did that is why all this is so surreal."

Dr. Hendrix's phone rang and she said looking at it,

"I have to get this."

Olivia nodded and said,

"No problem. I need to get back for Elliot anyway he should be out of xray by now."

Hendrix said,

"I'll be one second, can you wait I want to ask you something?"

Olivia nodded. Hendrix took the call. Less than a minute later she was done and said to Olivia,

"I need to go to the outpatient department they just brought my patient in. Let's walk and talk."

Olivia,

"Okay. How is private practice?"

Hendrix laughed,

"I love it. It took me a long time to get my privileges back after that last case. But it was worth it. So I don't know how to ask this so I am going to be blunt, are you and Elliot finally really together since his divorce?"

Olivia was a little taken aback by the question but figured that maybe Elliot had talked to Hendrix about her in some of his sessions, way back when. She said as she played with her coffee cup,

"Yes we are. You know after he shot Jenna I called him, I left messages, I went to the places he used to frequent looking for him. I never called his house or went there because of Kathy, but he never called me back once. Fin told me not to expect him to because he had shot a kid and probably would never wear a gun again, and probably could not talk to me. Then I remembered the Gitano case where we put each other ahead of the victims and he said he could not do that again or we could not be partners. Jenna was shooting randomly in the squadroom and then she pointed the gun towards me until a perp in our holding cell said something to her and she pointed the gun at him and Elliot shot her. He talked to IAB and left me a pendent of his badge number in my drawer with the words, Semper Fi..."

She showed the pendent which she never took off to Hendrix,

"He is not big into good byes, he is a more of a see you later type. The next time I saw him was in the squadroom, a couple of months ago, when one of our victims would not talk to anyone but Elliot. He came in with his class and worked the case. We had started a relationship, but did not get very far before this happened. So now Dr. Ross is working with him and myself to help get us back on track so that we can see where this relationship could really go. If it could work."

Hendrix said,

"Anyone who is around you both or any length of time can see how much you two care about each other. It could be mistaken for love. I remember when I was asked to do an independent therapy session with you two, the first thing that hit me was how much Elliot cared about you and it was more than as a partner, and even though you tried to hide it I could see your feelings for him."

Olivia asked,

"Then why did you not split us up?"

Hendrix answered,

"Because you weren't breaking any rules and you know the priority of life. Besides I wasn't there to split you two, I just needed to make sure you were both okay. For me you were."

Olivia smiled and nodded,

"He is a good man."

Hendrix chuckled,

"I never realized how much you two are alike. It is uncanny."

Olivia said,

"Dr. Ross said the same thing.

Hendrix,

"I only know Dr. Ross by her reputation, but from what I know she would be the perfect person for you both."

They walked into the back examination area, where Elliot was and so was Dr. Hendrix's patient. Elliot was coming back to the room with the volunteer when he saw the two ladies, he immediately smiled as Olivia hugged him and handed him his coffee. He looked at Dr. Hendrix and shook her hand, he said,

"Wow I have not seen you in years. What brings you here?"

She shook his hand too and said,

"I am here seeing a patient. How are you doing? I heard about your recent adventures, for lack of a better word."

Elliot said,

"Actually I am doing alright. I will know more shortly."

Hendrix said as the nurse let her know her patient was ready to see her,

"The three of us will have to get together soon and catch up."

They made plans for drinks, when the doctor came back with the results followed by a nurse pushing a cart with a saw on it. Elliot grinned like a little kid, he knew the cast was coming off. He sat on the gurney as per the nurse as the doctor put on surgical gloves, and said,

"Well, the ribs are fully healed so there is no problem there and so it your arm so I will remove the cast but you will need to do some physio and strength exercises since from the looseness of the cast you have lost muscle mass and your arm will need to be rebuilt."

The doctor put on his safety glasses and handed Elliot a pair. He then explained what would happen next. Elliot knew how casts were cut off he had had one on after getting shot in the elbow in the courtroom by Neo Nazis, during a his first encounter with 'Starr'. With the blade set the doctor looked at Elliot and said,

"You ready?"

Elliot nodded and asked,

"Can you save the cast so I can have the signatures and drawings. My little guy used it as his art board..."

The doctor nodded,

"I will save as much as I can."

He cut into the cast and broke it open saving all the signatures and drawings that were on it. He removed it and examined Elliot's arm, Olivia could not believe how much muscle mass he really did lose in 6 weeks. The doctor seeing her concerned look said,

"Don't worry, not getting enough protein has not helped the way it looks. But once back on a regular diet it will come back to a new normal."

Elliot nodded and thanked the doctor. He took the cast as Olivia carried their coffees and he said,

"Time for Melinda."

And they headed out.

As Melinda turned her recorder off signalling the end of her latest autopsy, she watched Olivia and Elliot walk in hand in hand. She had witnessed the majority of their story, and the 3 of them were friends, good friends. She said,

"Hey you two. How are you?"

Elliot waved his cast free arm and said,

"Good so far and hoping you add to it."

Olivia just shook her head. Melinda said,

"I won't keep you in suspense over the results. I know you are anxious."

She went to her desk and got 2 pieces of paper, she handed one to Elliot and read from the other one,

"These are the results of your STD and AIDS tests. As you will notice you are clean, no STDs, no AIDS, no Hep C, B or A. Nothing. You are good to go and you can stop taking the antivirals and protocol."

Elliot let out a loud sigh of relief,

"Thank God. I am so relieved."

Melinda said,

"I still need to test you again in 3 months and 6 months. But those tests are just precautionary."

She looked at Olivia, who was clearly relieved and trying to keep her emotions in check, as she threw her arms around his neck and gave him a kiss on the cheek. Melinda said,

"Elliot I hope this helps on your road to healing."

He nodded,

"Getting off the meds is a huge start. You have no idea how good a cheeseburger and fries would be right about now."

She laughed said to Olivia,

"Liv you are awfully quiet."

She said,

"I am just so relieved that things are turning out so well. I don't know what to say."

Elliot hugged her and returned the kiss as Melinda watched, she knew they were not two people to show a lot of affection in public. So she felt privileged to be witnessing this small amount of it.

Once they left Elliot said,

"I know I just got a clean bill of health for now, but I do need to be retested in 3 months so til then..."

Olivia looked at him praying he was not going to say they needed to wait another 3 months to progress their relationship. He saw her look and smiled slyly,

"So til then I will use a condom just to be on the safe side."

She playfully slapped him and just laughed, causing him to laugh with her. He took her hand as they walked towards Olivia's apartment.


	8. A New Beginning

Olivia woke up to the smell of bacon and eggs, she heard her stomach growl as she rolled out of bed. As she made her way to the bathroom she heard Elliot humming as he had his back to her while he made breakfast, it brought a smile to her face. Elliot heard her as she closed the bathroom door, he took out two glasses and poured orange juice, he was so hungry for a regular breakfast that in between the nightmares he dreamt about bacon and eggs.

Olivia came out of the bathroom and walked into the kitchen and went up behind him, putting her arms around his waist. Feeling her arms around him he turned so that he was facing her and kissed her on the lips and then said,

"Good morning Beautiful, I hope you are hungry."

She kissed him back and said as he turned back to flip the eggs,

"Good morning, yourself. I am starved anything I can help with?"

As she said this the 4 slice toaster popped and he said,

"Would you butter the toast?"

She grabbed a plate and knife as she said,

"Absolutely."

As she buttered she said,

"I could get used to this."

He laughed as he put the bacon and eggs on two plates. He said,

"I don't know if this is going to be an everyday occurrence, but I was up early this morning because my stomach was sore and growling from hunger. Those meds did a real number on my stomach."

As he put the plates of food on the table, Olivia grabbed utensils and the toast and joined him. She said,

"You know with our schedules I will take whatever I can get. This is great."

He took a gulp of his juice and said,

"I am with you though, I could get very used to having breakfast with you every morning. This is a great way to start the day."

She said, as she watched him dip his toast into the yolk of his egg and take a bite,

"I noticed you slept so much better last night. The nightmare did not last as long as normal."

He said as she put some egg on her toast,

"Sorry I was trying to be quiet so as not to disturb you. I know you are a light sleeper."

She shook her head as she chewed,

"You didn't disturb me. There is nothing you could do that ever would."

He said, taking a bite of his bacon,

"I am so looking forward to going away."

Olivia agreed, watching him enjoy his breakfast,

"Me too. I hope it is hot and sunny."

He nodded,

"It is. I have booked us a month in Hawaii. Sabrina has a timeshare there on Kauai, the garden island. She said its ours for the month and longer if we want."

Olivia bite into her bacon and as she swallowed she said,

"Really? Very cool."

He nodded as he cleaned his plate,

"Well we talked about Hawaii and when Sabrina heard what we were thinking she offered. So I accepted and didn't think you would mind."

As she finished her plate and got up to clean the table before getting ready for work she said,

"I don't mind, I am actually thrilled because we will not be stuck in a hotel for the month, we will be able to eat out when we want and also cook when we want. The one thing I always hated about travelling was that if I wake up at 3 am and want toast I want to be able to have toast, in a hotel you can't do that."

He laughed as he got up and put his empty juice glass in the sink and filled it with water. As they headed to the bedroom to get dressed Elliot said,

"3 am toast is a vacation deal breaker huh?"

She shook her head and laughed,

"I am sure you have a deal breaker in there somewhere."

He just chuckled as he got dressed.


	9. Olivia Finally Talks

Sabrina sat across from Olivia and Elliot as they sat on the couch in her office holding hands,

"Olivia, you said you felt ready to talk about what happened at Sealview. Do you still want to do that?"

Olivia was not ready to go there but she knew she had to in order to make Elliot understand she knew what he was going through, but in all honesty she knew she had to do this for herself. She took a deep breath, she felt Elliot squeeze her hand as she began,

"A few years ago when Elliot and I were partners, we had a young girl come in who had been raped, her mother was in jail where she was being raped also. Elliot went into Sealview, where she was incarcerated acting as her lawyer, he told her about her daughter and got the mother's story, it turns out it was a guard who was doing the raping. Shortly after, the mother was beaten and killed, I went in undercover to try and catch the guard. Because Elliot was known to the jail he could not go in with me so we put Fin in as a guard to look out for me. During a TB lock-down and inoculation, the guard in question got me alone and took me to the basement, where he had a mattress he used to rape the inmates. He cornered me and..."

She stopped this was the furthest she had ever gone with her story, she felt Elliot's hand on hers as she took a breath, she continued,

"I fought him he grabbed at my breasts and I screamed louder than I ever had trying to get someone's attention. He handcuffed me to the door forcing me on my knees, he opened his pants and tried to force himself into my mouth. Before he could Fin showed up and arrested him, he showed no remorse. It was the closest I had ever come to being assaulted, it changed me. It made me a victim also and I didn't like. I just understand Elliot where you are coming from."

He said as he squeezed her hand,

"I always knew you understood, but..."

Olivia interrupted him, squeezing his hand,

"You had asked me about it, and you left the door wide open I just never walked through it."

Sabrina asked,

"Olivia you were not raped but you were assaulted. Did you ever get therapy outside of group therapy?"

Olivia shook her head as she looked at Elliot, to gauge his reaction as she had never told him. She said,

"I went to group therapy for over a year, one on one therapy was suggested but I never took the offer."

Sabrina looked at Elliot,

"You don't look surprised, Elliot..."

He shook his head,

"I'm not. I knew and was glad."

Olivia turned and looked at him,

"I was shocked when I found out you knew also. But like I told you, you always had my back."

He shrugged,

"That is what partners are for."

Sabrina asked,

"Olivia I noticed when Elliot and his class were helping with the case, John went up to you and quietly said, 'Welcome back'. What did he mean?"

Olivia shrugged as she looked out the window,

"For 12 years I got used to Elliot having my back, we had some dicey cases and Elliot always made sure I got home safe. I had to blink my lights to let him know everything was fine before he would drive away. We covered for each other and we could read each other like a book. All I had to say was 'how do you want to handle this?' He would say one word and I knew. We were like a well oiled machine with our own playbook. And then to come to work one day and find out the only stable person in your life has been cleared to come back to work but decides to retire, it was the harder than when my mother died. I didn't cry when my mom passed away I just went back to work, but when I found out he left and I was alone, really alone for the first time in 12 years I cried..."

She looked at Sabrina and could not look at Elliot, she swallowed hard and continued,

"I had a new partner who I did not trust and I started taking care of myself, I went at things alone and swore I would never let anyone else in again. Fin got a new partner so we didn't get to work together as much. Munch was second to Cragen and was more on the office end, so my world really got turned upside down. For the first time in my life I did not feel safe and it didn't help that Elliot did not answer his phone, he was no longer a phone call away. He was gone."

Sabrina said,

"I think no woman or man should ever be assaulted in any way, shape or form. But as a detective how has it changed the way you do your job? I mean you have also lost your closet ally. I remember seeing an evaluation in Elliot's jacket about an outside consult that the two of you were put through with Dr. Hendrix because Captain Cragen thought you two were too close because of a botched arrest on a stakeout. A miscommunication you two had, her findings were that you two were too close that you were codependent on each other but that if Cragen split you up then he would lose his two best detectives."

Elliot and Olivia sat silent for a moment then looked at each other surprised, Elliot said,

"I didn't know that was the outcome, I just knew we were left alone after the evaluations."

Olivia said,

"So we can thank Rebecca for our staying partners."

Sabrina nodded,

"But Olivia with everything you have been through how has it changed the job for you?"

Olivia cleared her throat and said,

"I understand what the victims have been through a whole lot more than I did before. I have always understood the crime of assault and rape, because I am a product of rape, but I never fully appreciated the mental toll it takes on a person both physically and mentally."

Sabrina was not surprised by Olivia saying she was a product of rape because Elliot had told her when he talked about his partnership with Olivia early on in his therapy sessions at Greenwood.

Olivia let go of Elliot's hand as she got up from the couch and stood by the window and looked out, she then said,

"When I first started with SVU and became partners with Elliot he was the calm one, he taught me everything I know about being a detective. I went gun hoe and wanted to make all the perps pay, I was like Angie Dickinson's Police Woman, I would do anything to get the perp, I was hot headed, I can't count the amount of times I was told I was a bitch. Elliot evened me off and I began to trust him with everything, personally and professionally. I told him things I never told anyone and he never judged. I remember in our third year together, the cases changed they started getting worse, the things people would do to each other got even worse. I remember the day he changed, he went to court where a grandfather was on trial for molesting his granddaughter and he got off. Elliot had promised the little girl she would not have to deal with the grandfather, but she still had to. He came back to the squadroom and was in a foul mood and then another little girl got molested and I still remember his exact words, as we looked at the crime scene, 'And I didn't think this day could get any worse.' I still remember the defeated look on his face, I remember thinking here is the strongest man I have ever met and he looks like he is going to cry. And then after that things went downhill for him which in turn changed me. He became the hot headed one and I became the even tempered one, in essence we traded roles the difference was I had no problem telling him anything yet getting him to talk was like pulling teeth. I heard everything about him after the fact."

Elliot chuckled as Sabrina asked,

"Did this not upset you?"

Olivia nodded,

"It did at first then I realized how to get around it. I always thought I needed him more than he needed me, but I always made sure he knew our partnership was a two way street. Then the day came where a little girl was being molested by the captain of the school soccer team but she said it was her neighbour who she referred to as an uncle. I remember we were at the uncle's house and the wife was saying she was always there and Elliot lost it on her saying she was as sick as her husband. Then he left the basement, when we came out – Elliot had a hard time breathing, he said, 'I almost hit her.' then he bend over and said, 'I'm done I can't do this anymore' he was crying and said, 'how does someone walk away after 20 years?'. He wasn't referring to the case he was referring to his marriage. For me that was the first time he allowed me to see that emotional side of himself. His anger and hotheadedness lasted for almost 6 years, until the Breslin case..."

Sabrina nodded, Elliot had talked to her about it. Olivia looked at Elliot and said to him,

"El, I don't mean to talk like you are not here but it is easier this way."

Elliot nodded and said,

"Liv, I need to hear you say these things, your opinion always has mattered to me. That is why I always keep so much to myself, I never wanted you to see me as weak. I was raised to keep my feelings inside, my mom always told me I was too much like my dad and that one day all my neat little boxes were going to blow up, and she was right, cause when they blew they blew sky-high."

Olivia said,

"I think what you just said is telling, because you never talked about your mom so I always thought she was dead and then Kathleen got into trouble and your mom would not help you so you had Kathleen put in jail to get her forcibly medicated for her Bipolar. Kathy called me and when I confronted you – you acted like it was nothing. I met your mom and I found her to be a very nice lady who really loves you. Do you know that I have had lunch with her a few times since then?"

Elliot looked shocked,

"Really?"

Olivia nodded and smiled,

"So you don't know everything? When she comes to the city we usually make plans to have lunch. She tells me stories about you as a boy."

Elliot just shook his head as Sabrina watched him accept the revelation of Olivia's words. Sabrina said to him,

"Does what you are hearing from Olivia bother you?"

Elliot shook his head,

"2 years ago it would have bothered me but now I am okay with it. Besides I knew something was up because, since I have been seeing you Doc, I reconnected with my mother and I have been visiting her twice a month. She just seemed different."

Olivia shook her head and laughed saying as he smirked at her,

"I am glad to hear you see your mom regularly, the three of us will have to do lunch one day."

Olivia came and sat back down and said,

"My point in what I was saying is that we have both changed so much through the years. After the Breslin incident Elliot went into counselling with Dr. Hendrix and she really helped him, he calmed down a lot and our relationship changed. I realized I loved him and needed him in my life, he was everything to me. I remember when I came back from working undercover with the FBI in Oregon, and I went to the bar where we all usually went and I saw Elliot kissing Dani Beck, his partner at the time, outside his Jeep and he was wearing tight jeans and tight sweaters..."

Sabrina asked,

"Considering how you felt about Elliot how did you feel about seeing him kiss another woman?"

Olivia looked at Elliot and said,

"I was jealous. It was then that I realized Elliot did not return the feelings I had for him."

Elliot interrupted,

"Whoa, not true. I loved you almost from day one, but I really fell in love with you after I left Kathy. I never kissed you because I respected you too much and I knew you would not put our partnership on the line by crossing that line. Besides you always said you had a personal code of never dating anyone you worked with. You know all our movie and dinner nights, the nights I slept on your couch I wished it was your bed but I just never wanted to step across that line. With Dani I knew she could not cut it and would not last as my partner but I found her sexy and I, honestly, would not have said no if she had invited me into her bed."

Sabrina watched Olivia reaction to this revelation. Olivia nodded,

"I never wanted to be the other woman. I never wanted to be the reason your marriage broke up. Our relationship now is good because you and Kathy ended on your own and I had nothing to do with it. As for Dani, that is old history besides Kathy was the only girl you had been with and I know when you two were separated you got adventurous with the ladies."

He looked at her surprised and she said,

"I am not blind, and we ladies talk, we both got hit on a lot over the years. I think you wearing a wedding band most of those years made you a bigger target. It was like a magnet for you getting hit on."

He started to laugh and nodded,

"I have to agree but when I took it off after the divorce, it was just as bad. The nice part was the ladies I did take out socially were nice ladies who just wanted a quick fix and no commitment, which was exactly the same as what I was looking for."

Olivia nodded,

"I always was curious about a couple of things in that regard, you always tried to be a good Catholic and I know condoms are a no no and that the bedroom was no place for adventure so did you follow that when you were separated?"

Elliot laughed and said,

"I thought this was about you and Sealview?"

Sabrina shook her head, as Olivia said,

"Ah and there he is, the Stabler I know and love. Beside that is only part of it, this is about honesty. Answer the question."  
Elliot looked at Sabrina, who shrugged not bailing him out, and he said,

"I did a lot of things when Kathy and I were separated, using condoms was one of them. I met a Federal Agent on one of my training sessions with the Feds, she asked me out I accepted and she invited me back to her place. One thing lead to another and we went to bed together. It was the first time I ever used a condom. After that I went on a few other dates and ended up in the same position, I found myself not saying no. I remember one night I invited a lady back to my place and Richard walked in on us and thus ensued that father son talk or as he liked to call it the son talking to the father talk."

Sabrina and Olivia chuckled and nodded. Sabrina looked at Olivia and asked,

"Are you okay with continuing on about Sealview?"

She nodded,

"I have never gotten this far with it before. I need to finish."

She took Elliot's hand and she felt him squeeze it, she took a breath and continued,

"The group therapy helped me be able to make things seem normal, but as for my personal life not so. I couldn't date and I cringed when anyone touched me. I had nightmares for a few months, and when the nightmares finally ended I came out a different person. I did not trust myself and being with a man did not interest me..."

She then stopped and blushed, Elliot said,

"Why are you blushing?"

She looked at Sabrina who asked,

"What is it?"

She looked at both of them and taking a breath she said,

"I used to have fantasies, very explicit sexual ones before the nightmares took over. They stopped but once the nightmares stopped and I was able to relax they came back, stronger than before and that was when I knew I would be alright."

Elliot asked slyly,

"Care to share?"

Olivia playfully swatted him,

"Eventually..."

Sabrina said,

"You will always remember being assaulted but it does not have to define you."

Elliot said,

"I want our relationship to be a clean slate. We both have things that happened to us in the past and that will never change but I don't want them to be part of what we are trying to build."

Olivia nodded and said as an afterthought,

"Should Dr. Phil be worried?"


	10. The Hypnosis

Elliot woke up to the smell of coffee, toast and bacon. He went into the bathroom to do his business and put on a t shirt. Olivia heard him and said as she turned to face him,

"Good morning Sexy."

He smiled as he kissed her,

"Good morning Beautiful."

He looked at the breakfast counter where she had lettuce, bacon and tomatoes ready for sandwiches. He pulled the toast out of the toaster and put two more pieces in then buttered the hot ones and put them on the counter. Olivia finished frying the bacon and said,

"You seemed to sleep well last night."

He nodded,

"I think last night was the best night's sleep I have had since this whole experience happened. I actually thought I would have trouble since today I will be seeing Doc Skoda."

Olivia asked,

"Are you nervous about getting hypnotized today?"

Elliot said as he put his sandwich together,

"I was at first, but Sabrina will be there with me so everything should be okay."

Olivia said,

"You've talked to Skoda before."

Elliot nodded,

"I have but not under these circumstances. I've seen what can happen to people under hypnosis..."

Olivia laughed,

"Skoda would never do anything unprofessional. Besides Sabrina will be there."

Elliot nodded,

"She is the only reason I agreed."

**Dr. Skoda's Office**

Elliot waited in the waiting room and realized he had never been to Dr. Emil Skoda's office before, he had always seen him at the squadroom or in court. The one time he was forced to see him it was in the office of a local church, he felt nervous not because he was seeing Skoda but because he was giving over complete control of himself to someone else...his thoughts were interrupted by Sabrina who sat down beside him,

"Elliot how bad are the nerves?"

He looked at her as she continued,

"On a scale of 1 to 10."

He said to no one in particular,

"I was say 1 until I walked into this office now it is about an 11."

The door to the office opened and Dr. Skoda came out, he walked over to them and said extending his hand,

"Good morning Elliot... Sabrina. Come on in."

They followed him into the bright, very peaceful office. Elliot looked around very surprised, Skoda noticed and said,

"I take it this is not what you expected Elliot?"

Elliot shook his head,

"No it isn't."

Skoda smiled,

"Good that is what I was going for when I had it decorated."

Sabrina started to laugh. Skoda showed them to his patient seats and he sat across from them. He said to Elliot,

"When Sabrina called me about doing this with you I was, admittedly, extremely surprised that you had agreed to hypnosis. But I promise you I can help with this and I want to help."

As he watched Elliot continue to look around, he asked him,

"How are you feeling right now?"

Elliot took a deep breath and as he exhaled he said,

"Very nervous. I have seen what can happen to people who are hypnotized but I really need to put this out there, if I come out of this chasing cats and barking like a dog I will come back and shoot you after you remove the trigger."

Skoda and Sabrina both started to laugh. Skoda said,

"I promise you that will not happen. You and I have talked a few times over the years and I know how hard it is for you to accept, or even ask for, help. Do you have any questions before we start?"

Elliot nodded,

"Yes a couple. How long have you been doing hypnosis and what is your success rate?"

Skoda said,

"I have been doing hypnosis for 15 years and about a 90% success rate, the rate is dependent on the subject. Sabrina said you are having repressed memories that we can not get to just by talking. As I told Sabrina I would absolutely help you because I know some of your history and too many good cops get railroaded by the stress of the job. And we get our bad cops because many decide to find a way around the system making it hard for the good ones to do their jobs. Elliot you are a good cop, did you bend the rules? Of course you did. Did you get results? Absolutely. Your problem has always been that you are too good at this job, 80% of the time you knew who your perp was and had to go looking for the proof to convict them. But your biggest problem has always been that big heart you try to hide. I remember the very first time I heard about you, you were the golden child who was the youngest cop ever to make detective, you were fast tracked because of that first big front page conviction you got. You were the talk of the department, I remember one of my colleagues saying when you got into Special Victims, he is one of the good guys and who ever gets the Manhattan Special Victims as part of their practise needs to take care of him. But you were always the tough guy, you became a lead detective very quickly and had the highest closure rate of 97% in the squad and still do to this day. Not even Olivia has come close to that rate. But you paid a high price to get there, and your high price was to the victim's benefit and to your detriment. When I heard about the shooting and you retiring I hoped you were okay, then one day I went to a conference and heard there that Huang had gotten you in with Doc Ross hearing that then I had very mixed emotions. I was upset that you got that far down but relieved that you were in good hands. About a year later, I went to a seminar where Doc Ross was giving a talk on PTSD and to my surprise you were there and told your story. I was blown away and so very proud, it was powerful. I wanted to go and talk to you but you were surrounded by other doctors asking questions and then I noticed that old look you used to get when you had to come and talk to us after a shooting and such. 'That look of get me the hell out of here, I would rather being anywhere but here.' So I didn't stick around, I was just glad to see you were okay and talking about it. Now do either of you have any questions about the hypnosis process?"

Elliot nodded his head, he asked,

"Just one more thing, can you make it so that I can get past this feeling of violation?..."

He then cleared his throat as he looked at the floor and he continued,

"I don't know how to ask this so I will come right out and ask, I need to be able to feel intimately normal. I want the intimacy that George stole from me back..."

He fought back his emotions,

"I need it back not only for myself but for Olivia."

Skoda watched as Elliot struggled to control his emotions wiping at his eyes to stop the impending tears from falling and not succeeding. Skoda said, not acknowledging the tears because he was so relieved that Sabrina had got through his toughness,

"I absolutely can help you. You need to know I will not be able to take the memory of what happened to you away but I certainly can help you get past it."

Skoda looked at Sabrina who nodded her head. Skoda then said,

"I need you to be comfortable, do you want to sit or lie down for this? I am okay with either way I just need you comfortable."

Elliot looked at the couch,

"I think I will lie down."

Skoda got up and led the way to his sitting area where there was a couch and 2 comfortable arm chairs, Sabrina took one as Elliot removed his jacket and undid the first 2 buttons on his shirt. He removed his shoes and lay on the couch. Once he was comfortable Skoda explained what was going to happen,

"At this point I normally ask if you have ever been hypnotized but I know you have not been. You will clearly remember everything that happens during this session, secondly you cannot be made to do anything while under that you don't want to. Thirdly, all cellphones need to be off we need to be undisturbed during the whole time Elliot is under."

Elliot and Sabrina turned off their cellphones. Elliot readjusted himself and got comfortable, Skoda asked as he dimmed the lights,

"Are you comfortable?"

Elliot said,

"Yes."

Skoda started,

"Now Elliot, I need you to take a deep breath and release it as you close your eyes and imagine you are in a happy place where you feel comfortable and secure."

As Elliot took a deep breath he closed his eyes and thought of his happy place, lying naked in bed with his arms around Olivia listening to her even breaths as she slept. He felt his breathing evening out to match hers then he heard Skoda's voice lower and become background to Olivia's breathing. He heard Skoda say,

"You can feel yourself relaxing now. You can feel a heavy, relaxed feeling coming over you. As I continue to talk, that heavy relaxed feeling will continue to get stronger until it carries you into a deep, peaceful state of hypnosis."

Elliot felt himself relaxing more and more he had never felt so at peace with himself or anything else. He heard Skoda continue,

"And the deeper you go, the deeper you are able to go and the deeper you go, the deeper you want to go and the more enjoyable the experience becomes."

Skoda was watching Elliot's body lose all its tenseness, his breathing had become very even with no labouring from trying to relax. Sabrina was blown away by how quickly Elliot relaxed and how easily he was put under. Skoda then said,

"Now you are resting comfortably in a deep, peaceful state of sleep, going deeper and faster, deeper and faster all of the time, until I bring you back. You will only accept those suggestions which are for your benefit and that you are willing to accept."

Sabrina had handed Skoda a sheet with questions about what they were trying to get to. Skoda then said,

"Okay Elliot I am going to ask you some questions about the night you were taken from your old precinct. Do you remember that night?"

Elliot said,

"Yes I do."

Skoda,

"Can you take me through it from the beginning?"

Elliot started,

"Once we found out that Jones had recorded Sarah's calls, I asked him to get the tapes to TARU so we could find out who the caller was and as he went home to get the tapes, Sabrina, Liv and I went for lunch."

Elliot stopped and Skoda asked,

"Did anything happen at lunch?"

Elliot said,

"We ate."

Skoda chuckled and looked at Sabrina who was smirking. Skoda shook his head and then asked,

"Did you talk about anything important?"

Elliot smiled,

"We talked about my relationship with Liv how we feel about each other. How since seeing Sabrina I have calmed down, not so hot headed or angry. How sexy I still am..."

Skoda smirked and shook his head,

"OK point taken. What did you do after lunch pertaining to the case?"

Elliot continued,

"We went back to the squad room and TARU had the tapes, but could not make out the voice. It had been professionally altered. Upon listening to them we could not find the triggers. We called you in and you got us the trigger phrase and told us what the 3 possible anti triggers were. You also seemed surprised Sabrina did not know them. I then took Jones into Interrogation 2 to talk to him and Huang took Sarah into Interrogation 1 to talk to her. When we finished we headed back to the squadroom where TARU had cleaned up the tapes well enough to bring out the real voice. It was Huang. When he realized it was his voice and the gig was up he put a gun to my head, the officers in the room pulled their guns and told him to put his gun down. Sarah then entered the room, she looked like a robot and next thing I know it felt like she had jabbed me in the leg with a needle and I passed out. The next thing I remember is waking up on the chopper and then we landed. The pilot carried me lumberjack style into what we now know was the old precinct, I couldn't fight him because I was too weak and groggy from the drug. I remember being relieved that I was not blindfolded or gagged, not that it made an initial difference. They then took me to an interrogation room and lay me on the table, I tried to fight but Huang and the pilot held me down as Sarah stripped me to my boxers and tied my legs to the table and as Huang came to the top of the table I begged him not to do this, I told him I would do anything if he did not go through with this, he smiled and said, if I meant it he wanted a kiss and one night with me alone. I promised him that as Sarah tied my hands to the table. The pilot let go and Sarah stripped from the waist down and straddled me, I have never been more terrified in all my life, George leaned in for a kiss and as our lips and tongues touched Sarah started to rub against my boxers, I felt myself responding and the harder I got the more I screamed for her to stop, George smiled and said, 'your soft lips can wait, from what I can see your body is not going to let you wait til Sarah is done', she lifted off of me and I thought she was going to stop but she didn't she pulled my boxers down and said, 'why detective who knew rough sex turned you on so much' she restraddled me and started to rub against me. I heard George in the background moaning as if he was enjoying the show. Then when I thought it could not get worse she put her hand around me and started to stroke me, as I got even harder I could feel her wetness on me as she rubbed my tip over the opening. I screamed so loud because I knew the wetness was not from me. I heard George laugh and say,

'Finally everyone's pet the great Detective Stabler is scared.'

I could feel the tears running down my face, the fear was overwhelming then just before she slide onto me the cavalry came charging in."

Skoda watched as Elliot had tears running down his cheeks, he looked at Sabrina and quietly said to her,

"You have done an amazing job with him."

He then turned back to Elliot and said,

"I know your relationship with Olivia is important, have you talked to her about what happened?"

Elliot said,

"Yes."

He asked,

"How did she handle it?"

Elliot said,

"She told me she understood."

Skoda asked,

"What kind of relationship do you want to have with Olivia and where do you want to see it go?"

Elliot said,

"I want to have a relationship that is a two way street, we have a lot of things in common and some that are solo things. I want us to have a complete relationship where we do things together and then have the freedom to do our solo things with our friends. You know I like sports, she doesn't; she likes poetry readings, I don't; but she has friends she does that with and I have sons I do sports with. I never want her to be sorry she met me. The only problem with our relationship right now is me, I am having trouble with being intimate, but in the end, I have every intention of marrying her and I want to be able to make love to her every night and morning we are together."

Sabrina looked at Skoda who looked shocked. Skoda then shook his head and said,

"After this session you will no longer have those feelings of feeling dirty or being scared to be intimate with the woman you love. You will be back to your old confident self, you will be able to be intimate and have a healthy equal loving relationship with Olivia. Now, Elliot I am now going to count backwards from five to one, and with each number you will feel more alert and will open your eyes gradually. You will also remember every thing that happened here today."

Skoda started to count,

"5...4...3...2...1."

Elliot opened his eyes and stretched rubbing the tears from his cheeks, he looked at Skoda,

"So the erection was real."

Skoda said,

"Yes it sounds like it. But it bothers you.."

Elliot shook his head,

"The fact that I got an erection on my own bothers me because I am not into rough sex. What bothered me more was the fact that I could not remember it and that I had no control over what happened to me."

Skoda said,

"Elliot you know as well as I do that our bodies can deceive us. Just because you got an erection after being tied up does not mean you enjoy rough sex. Our bodies react to stress differently. "

Sabrina asked,

"Does knowing everything help you?"

Elliot said nodding his head,

"Yes it does. It seems like such a small thing but for me it was everything. I now don't have to go to sleep wondering what I forgot. I can now move on with Olivia and have a very healthy relationship for the both of us."

As Elliot got up to leave, Skoda said to him,

"If either of you, or Olivia need anything, and I mean ANYTHING from me please ask, my door will always be open to you no matter what."

Both Sabrina and Elliot thanked the doctor as they shook his hand and they left.


	11. After the Hypnosis

After the hypnosis Elliot came out of it feeling refreshed and more like himself than he had in weeks. He remembered everything that had happened to him while he was under just as Doc Skoda had said he would.

Elliot was back at the academy to do his afternoon class. John was covering morning classes so he could go for his appointment. Elliot walked into his class just as they were breaking for lunch, the whole class headed out to eat as John stayed to talk to Elliot. John asked,

"How did it go?"

Elliot stood by the door as his students walked past him saying hi,

"It went well. I was nervous as hell but after going through it, if I had to do it again I would."

John stopped picking up his papers, and looked at Elliot over his glasses and said,

"You, my friend, have come a long way. I have to say I am really very impressed."

Elliot laughed,

"So was Skoda. How was class this morning?"

John nodded and said as he went back to picking up the papers,

"Class went great, I really do enjoy doing this. I appreciate you letting me do this."

Elliot said,

"No problem. I appreciate you helping me out. Besides you have a lot of different experiences, with going from homicide in Baltimore to Special Victims in New York. These officers can learn a lot from you. I want these classes to have more information than we did when we started, my goal has always been to teach them what I think I should have been shown when I first started, they will still learn a lot on the job but if they are trained to expect the unexpected they will handle the job better."

As they headed for Elliot's office, Elliot said,

"Melinda is coming by this afternoon to cover Rape Kits. You want to join us or do you have somewhere else you need to be?"

John shook his head,

"Nowhere else to be, Cragen gave me the day since he wasn't sure what shape you would be in after your appointment and besides, I would love to stay."

Elliot said as he handed John his coat,

"Then we had better go and have lunch. Which by the way is on me..."

John laughed,

"Of course it is. By the way, Fin is joining us."

Elliot nodded.

**AT THE DINER**

John and Elliot walked into the diner and saw Fin just sitting down at a booth, the waitress was walking over, the two men sat down as she said putting menus in front of them,

"Can I get you gentlemen anything?"

They all ordered coffee. Elliot said,

"It is good to see you Fin. How are things going?"

Fin nodded,

"Good, Amarro and Rollins have caught on quick. Liv said you had your hypnosis this am, how did it go?"

Elliot was not surprised that Olivia had told Fin, they were close and that made Elliot happy, he knew Fin had her back. He said as he swallowed some of his coffee,

"It went really well. I feel like my new old self. Meaning the new self that Sabrina helped me find when she helped me find the old me under all the anger."

Fin asked,

"You mean the tiger instead of the hyena."

They all laughed. Fin then asked,

"You know I am not a guy to get all up in your business but what did it feel like to be hypnotized?"

Elliot said,

"Weird. I always thought hypnosis was a hypnotist taking control of one's mind but Sabrina explained it as a relaxed state of mind in which you are able to reach your subconscious. It was like reliving the whole incident in HD, very surreal. Besides Sabrina was there the whole time and I trust Skoda he has always been good to me during my time at the 16th, you know, when I said I wanted to kill perps; and I had that first HIV scare, I talked to him."

Fin said,

"So he didn't have you do any weird things?"

Elliot laughed,

"I warned him before he started if I came out of this chasing cats or barking like a dog when someone snapped their fingers I would shoot him."

The three men laughed.

John said,

"Warner is coming in this afternoon to do the Rape Kits with the class and El invited me to sit in on it, so I am. Cragen gave me the day off and besides you now have a new younger partner..."

Fin gave him the look before he said,

"You really like this sub teaching gig don't you Munch?"

John nodded and said as the waitress came back to take their orders,

"To help develop the human mind is a power all of its own and I am happy to supply some of it."

They all laughed as the waitress asked,

"Separate bills?"

Elliot said,

"No. One bill and I have it."

Fin said,

"Thanks. The next one is on me."

They all ordered the special which was a clubhouse with fries.

**The Rape Kit**

By the time they got back from lunch, Melinda was setting up in the classroom. All the cadets were helping her. Sanchez asked,

"Who is going to be the victim?"  
Elliot walked in,

"That would be me."

Melinda looked at him,

"Are you sure?"

John said,

"I asked him the same question."

Elliot turned to John and said,

"Well John if you really want to do it..."

John interrupted him,

"No, no, no, no. I will leave this lesson to you."

Melinda and Elliot laughed. Melinda said,

"I could just explain it and use diagrams..."

Elliot shook his head,

"No. They should have seen mine but Sabrina got me out of there so fast we forgot about it. So it is only fair that I do this..."

Sanchez interrupted,

"I want to volunteer to do it."

Elliot asked very surprised,

"Why?"

Sanchez,

"You have taught this whole course based on what the job really is, experience and empathy. Personally, I want to do this because I want to know how it feels to be the victim. What they go through, how if feels from their perspective. You always say we need to put ourselves in their place all the time being a cop and reading them. Let me ask you, Teach, you have done just SVU for 18 years and you have been assaulted but never been sexually assaulted. Once you were did it change what you thought you knew?"

Elliot looked at John surprised,

"Good question. Yes it did. I never really clarified why I got into Special Victims in the first place."

Brown said,

"You said you got into it because it had the highest unsolved rate."

Elliot nodded,

"That is my generic answer but the real reason I got into it is because my father was a cop and he was also extremely abusive. I could do no right in his eyes, the thing I remember the most is how fast my body got used to the pain caused from being constantly hit with his belt. He made me feel powerless, I never planned on being a cop it was actually the last thing I ever wanted, I joined the marines because I needed the training to be an astronaut which is what I really wanted. But I was barely 19 years old, just out of the marines after a 1 year tour, my wife of 1 1/2 years had our 9 month old baby while I was overseas. I became a cop because I needed a job and it seemed a natural progression since I needed the money to support my family and going into space was no longer a viable option. I never thought it was permanent but while I was in the Academy my wife was pregnant with our second child. By the time I got my first patrol I was 1 year away from being legal to drink, along with being a married father of 2. So I figured if I was going to be a cop I was going to be the best one I could be. I was the one of the youngest cops to make detective based on getting a high profile conviction. So here I am 30 years later teaching the next generation. To answer the question, I thought being an abused kid would give me the empathy needed and it did for the first 10 years but the cases got worse and the crimes nastier, so after what happened to me I see things in a much different light. It has given much more empathy..."

John and Melinda looked at each other shocked, they were learning so much about their long time co worker and friend. Melinda, then said,

"Elliot I think if Sanchez wants to do this you should let her."

Jones said,

"I agree. And I would like to be the male victim. I like that you teach from experience. It will also give us a leg up on what to expect and make it easier to explain to the victims."

Sabrina stood by the open door. Melinda saw her and asked,

"Well Sabrina do you agree?"

She looked at the class as she walked in,

"If it was forced on you all I would say no. But you are asking to experience it so I think it is fine. I will sit in on your class just to make sure all goes okay. Rape Kits are done as sensitively as possible but how each person handles it is different depending on their personal and cultural beliefs and their vanity levels."

Elliot said as he went and closed the door and pulled down the blind,

"Alright. You, both, can be the victims. But first, how did Sgt Munch make out this morning?"

Jones,

"He did great we learnt a lot about looking up info to find addresses, we did simulations. He gave us real case examples and we all had to tell what we would do to find the perp."

Elliot,

"Excellent. Now I have invited John to stay for the rest of the class to help with the importance of the Rape Kit. We are going to show you ways to get a victim to consent to having one done. We will explain what happens to it, the processes it goes through and then Doc Warner will explain what she does to collect the swabs and process the Kits."

Elliot continued,

"Ok, so you all saw that with Babs case, that once she reported her rape, we took her statement and got her to let Doc Warner finish the kit at her house. Now Babs case was a lot different than normal in that the whole kit is normally done at the hospital since we only have 96 hours to collect all viable fluids, and we like to keep the whole kit under one invoice number and have it processed at the same time for when it goes to court. We now know Babs case won't be going to court but most do."

John added,

"A lot of victims of rape need to be helped along with the process as it is the first time it has happened to them. And hopefully the only time. Now usually the hospitals are highly co-operative but there are times when we need to push to get it done."

Marlowe asked,

"Has there ever been a time when a victim as been raped more than once?"

Elliot nodded,

"We had a case once where a fired lab technician was trying to make a super race and he went back and raped the same girls up to 3 times trying to impregnate them. He would stay with them for more than 72 hours so that there would be no viable DNA. He did end up impregnating one woman and the only way we could catch him was from the fluid around the baby. The woman was married and her husband was totally against us drawing fluid but Olivia convinced her to do it, we were able to convict the rapist but her husband left her because he wanted to raise the baby not knowing the truth. Needless to say he was pissed at us for pushing her."

Elliot then added,

"Another one of our victims was being wheeled into surgery and Olivia had all the swabs ready for the nurse to do them as the gurney was rolling into the OR."

John added,

"Our job is to protect the victim and get justice for them which sometimes means getting a little creative."

Elliot nodded and added,

"Also remember you need to keep everything legal, so it is admissible in court. You never want to help the defence with their case, we work for the prosecution who represents the victim."

Elliot looked around the room,

"Any questions?"

Morrow asked,

"How hard is it to make a case stick without the rape kit?"

Elliot,

"Almost impossible today. The Rape Kit is your DNA which puts our perp at the scene. Usually no DNA, no case."

John said,

"In the early years we did have ADAs who have gotten convictions without a Kit. They did it on eye witness testimony and some creativity but those were the early years. Now our ADAs won't charge without the kit being done. We basically have to hand them their case, they will not try a no win case."

Elliot smiled and said,

"The early years where good, we had ADA Alex Cabot and ADA Casey Novak after her. These ladies were pitbulls in the courtroom. They had to be as creative as we were because the perps got smarter and knew the law and the ways around it, which forced us to have to be smarter and more creative. Did it get us in trouble? Absolutely. Did we help a lot of victims? Yes we did and that is what was most important."

John added,

"So we have explained some of the process so far, the victim calls the police, as soon as rape is mentioned Special Victims is called in, we investigate the scene for any clues and mistakes the perp made with the help of CSU. We then make the case getting any access we need from our ADA – to keep it legal – and then we hand the case off to the ADA who gets the conviction. Now if the victim is dead then a third and very big piece of the puzzle is brought in and that is our Medical Examiner, ME for short and Doc Warner here can be as creative as the rest of us but she is all about the DNA. She tells the victims story for them. And today she is going to show us how."

Elliot asked,

"Any other questions?"

Wentworth asked,

"What is the easiest way to handle getting the kit and confession?"

Elliot said,

"When Olivia and I were partners she rode in the ambulance with the female victims to the hospital while they had the rape kit done and got their full story while it was still fresh, it also distracted them as the kit was being done. I would stay at the crime scene and get all the info if there was any. If not, I would question any witnesses that might have been there. I would also profile the victim as an outsider and Liv would profile as an insider. Then we would met at the hospital and compare facts."

John said,

"Fin investigated I stayed with the victim but usually Elliot was lead so Liv did the victims. Unless they were kids then Elliot got them because he was a father and relates really well to kids."

The cadets all said together,

"Ah, that is so sweet."

Elliot blushed causing Sabrina, Melinda and John to crack up laughing. The cadets just looked at them questioningly, Melinda said,

"We are laughing because we don't get to see him turn this red, unless he is sick, but also because people were always so shocked by how well he got along with the kids, considering he was always so dark, moody and broody."

Elliot shook his head and laughed. He turned to the class and said,

"Now Doc Warner will explain her end of the rape kit."

She explained about the process of the rape kit and demonstrated on both Jones and Sanchez. Once she was done, the class took the rest of the afternoon and asked a lot of questions to both of them and Dr. Warner as Elliot took a seat by John and Sabrina and observed. Both, Jones and Sanchez had the same comment about their experience,

"Very humbling, exposing and intrusive."

Elliot said,

"The one thing you should both take away from this is how did you feel with the opposite sex in the room?"

Jones said,

"I didn't think it would bother me considering I know you, Dr. Warner did your kit Teach. But it was weird and uncomfortable."

Elliot said,

"Even though I know Melinda and am comfortable with her, it was still unnerving for me. We saw each other a lot during cases but always fully clothed, it is a lot different when clothes are not involved. And I don't consider myself a prudish guy, but I am not an exhibitionist either, I kind of looked at it as if I was changing in a locker room full of other people."

John said,

"You can't be weak of heart or stomach to do this job. You will see and experience things that will change your lives forever. I remember early on we had a case where a woman was abusing her daughter and the nanny took the little girl to the park and the girl wondered off and we were called because she was missing and was thought to be abducted. Elliot found her under a tree where she had passed out. We got her to the hospital and the doctor said she was had many healed injuries and breaks. We went to the house to find clues because we thought it was the nanny but I found hospital bracelets under other names because the mother had taken the girl to other hospitals and used fake names. The clues took us to another nanny who had given a reporter a story leading us to the little girl's nanny. But the more we investigated the more we found out that the only person who did not fail the little girl was her own nanny. The mother was very needy and had my pager number and kept calling it so it was agreed that I would talk to her. I got her to admit she was abusing the little girl. She had thrown her on the ground and she hit her head on the sidewalk curb, and because she was crying the mother spanked her with a hairbrush, the little girl stopped crying and then put her to bed and kissed her telling her she loved her. I walked out of the room numb from her confession and how basically she had blamed the little girl for getting abused. The mother's explanation was, 'my mom did the same to me and I turned out alright.' The little girl was in a coma in the hospital – I went up on the roof for air and Olivia came up to talk to me and make sure I was alright and I told her about a neighbourhood child who had the same vacant look that the little girl's brother had. Cases like that stay with you. We all have them, we just deal with them differently."

Elliot said,

"The one case that I will always remember is the one where we were called to the hospital because of a married 12 year old was 7 months pregnant. Olivia got there first and went to the girl's address to see what was going on. She knocked on the door and 4 young kids answered it. She asked for the father and he came to the door, he refused to let Liv in so she called me and I was 10 mins away. Before I got there he was firing his gun, the shooting stopped and in the silence a negotiator arrived and tried to get the father/husband to talk, we then heard 6 – 8 shots – SWAT broke in and as we were following up the stairs a couple of the officers came out and were sick, we walked in to find all the kids in the house dead and the father gone. As I looked around the place and at the kids for any survivors I noticed a young girl the same age as my youngest girl wearing the same pj top as my daughter. Cragen made us all go for Psych evaluations giving us no choice, I just swallowed what I had seen and wanted to move on, Huang wouldn't let me, he told Cragen I needed extra counselling and sent me home, I figured it was because I would not cry. I learnt later through Sabrina that I had to let my feelings go and not be afraid to feel them so that they would not stay. The one thing I want you all to take away from this class is don't suppress your feelings and emotions, don't drink to suppress them, feel them get them out of your system. Some people need to talk about them, other people need to have a good cry, others use boxing as a way to get rid of their aggression. But most importantly, always remember to take care of yourselves in a healthy way otherwise you will be no good to anyone including yourself."

After class, Melinda, John and Elliot went for a drink. Melinda asked,

"So you and Olivia are going away?"

Elliot nodded,

"Yes for 4 weeks, maybe 6. Sabrina has a timeshare on Kauai which she offered us so we are going."

Melinda,

"Olivia is really looking forward to it. How about you?"

Elliot nodded,

"Big time looking forward to it. Seeing Liv in a bikini, swimming with the sharks, getting a good tan and a lot of sun. But mostly just looking forward to time alone just the two of us."

John said,

"You two have had quite a rough go of this since you actually got together. Just make sure you are in a cage when you go swimming with the sharks. Did you know that in 2011 there were 17 fatalities reported due to shark attacks? In Hawaii, it was reported this year that there have been 9 fatalities..."

They all laughed. As Olivia walked up behind them and looked at Elliot saying,

"Don't worry El I'll save you."

Causing everyone to laugh even harder.


	12. Back at Olivia's

Olivia and Elliot had picked up Chinese Food on their way home from the bar. Once they had eaten Olivia asked,

"So El how was your session with Skoda today?"

He nodded as they sat on the couch,

"It went really well. Actually so much better than I expected."

Olivia walked over to the couch and sat down beside him,

"Do you think it helped?"

Elliot nodded as he unbuttoned the first 3 buttons on his shirt and pulled it out of his pants,

"Yes it did. I remember everything that happened now and I don't feel so stressed because I am not left wondering about anything. Will I forget it happened? No. But I can't let it continue to hold me back."

She looked at the exposed skin on his chest as she watched him and asked,

"What exactly does that mean?"

He smiled,

"What it means is that you and I have been physically intimate twice since we got together and neither way was the way we wanted it to be..."

She started to say,

"Its alright..."

He stopped her as he shook his head and said,

"When I fantasized about us being together as a long term steady couple it was not as a settled couple. You and I like a lot of the same things, Symphonies, Broadway Plays, Art shows, Concerts and travelling. The only things we differ on are I like sports which I can do with Richard and Eli and you like poetry readings which I know you do with Alex and Melinda. So the two things we like on our own makes the relationship strong in my opinion. We have so many common interests there is no way we can fail at this. And the bonus being I get and understand your long hours, I just ask one thing, I have no intention of interfering with your job but if you get stuck and need some outside direction I will be happy to help you on the QT. I just never want you to think our relationship was a bad idea, I have always thought of you as a strong, independent, beautiful lady who could take care of herself and I am not here to change that I just want to add to it. I want to be the guy you can't wait to see when you get home, I want to be the guy who makes you smile. Because you are the lady I love to wake up too every morning and you are the lady I can't wait to come home to at night."

She put her hand on his leg,

"Elliot I love you so much. After working with you for 12 full years, I do have to say, I have never heard you talk like this. I love that I am not the only one who fantasized about us. To let you know, that for better or worse, we know each other on a work basis being a couple in love is a little different but I look forward to it. I'm not going anywhere, I'm in this for the long haul. As for me, I will miss working with you everyday and knowing you have my back but knowing you will be here when I come home is such a psychological relief for me and gives me the stability of looking forward to seeing you every night, morning and days off."

He put his arms around her and kissed her forehead,

"Good so am I. I will always have your back, no matter what and I will always only be a phone call away. Now, I know it is early but we have some catching up to do, let's hit the shower and then head to bed."

She looked him in the eye and saw the Stabler confidence that had made her fall in love with him all those years ago,

"Are you sure?"

He stood up and took her hand,

"I have never been more sure of anything."

They headed to the bathroom, Elliot turned the water on as he finished unbuttoning his shirt, as he removed it. Olivia removed her pants and socks. He turned to her and kissed her deeply on the lips, she ran her hands over his chest and nipples and looked him in the eyes to make sure he was okay with her doing this. He said as he saw her hesitation,

"Liv I promise you I am okay. But I do have a question for you."

She started to undo his pants as she said,

"Sure ask me anything. What is it?"

He ran his hands under her blouse and asked,

"Do you still want to have a baby?"

She knew he loved kids and would have one with her if she wanted one. She slide her hands inside his pants as she said,

"I had given up on having a child of my own. You know, I didn't qualify for adoption because of my job. In vitro is way out of my ball park in terms of money. So giving birth to my own child is kind of the only way it would have ever happened. Unfortunately the only man I would ever consider getting pregnant with was never a possibility, my personal code of 'I don't date people I work with" was always in the way , along with the fact he was already married."

El said as he unhooked her bra and ran his hands over her breasts,

"Well he is no longer married and you no longer work with him. And to boot, he is more than willing to have as many babies with you as you want."

She laughed,

"I only wanted one child and honestly because of my age and where I am in life it is too late,so no I don't. Besides you do realize that even if we get pregnant in the next couple of months we will both be 65 by the time our child is 20. Anyway you already have 5 kids and I feel closest to Eli because I was there when he was born and Kathleen because she came to me when she needed help."

He said quite seriously,

"Yes I am. But think of the upside, our baby can babysit our grandchildren and then take care of us. Built in daycare and homecare. It's a Win Win."

Olivia started laughing as they kissed. He then said,

"But seriously, I leave the baby business to you, and if you want a child I am all for making it happen."

She looked him in the eye and said,

"I know you are and I love you for it. But at this time of my life I want to have a mature relationship with you where we can travel and do what we want. Grandchildren will be enough."

**Crossing the Line**

Olivia got in the shower first and soak her hair back Elliot got in behind her and took the shampoo and lather her hair, he watched as she handed him a loofah with body wash on it so he could wash her back

as she ran a brush through her hair to get rid of all the products she used. He loved how sexy she looked doing this, he ran the loofah over her shoulders and her back down to her butt where he continued with his hand over the sensitive areas of her butt. She smiled as she felt his hand touch her like she had always dreamed about. She rinsed the brush and put it down as he moved his hand lower, she slowly stood up and turned around causing his hand to move to her front. She kissed him deeply as she bent her head back to wash the shampoo out of her hair. He pulled back as she reached back to make sure her hair was shampoo free. She opened her eyes and saw him smiling at her as his eyes scanned her whole body, he said,

"This has been way too long."

She laughed,

"I agree."

She picked up his shampoo and said,

"Your turn."

He did the same and wet his hair. He soaped his chest and genitals while she shampooed his hair. Once she was done he handed her his soapy loofah and she washed his back and butt, when she reached his butt he bend over to wash his legs while she used her hand to wash all exposed areas. Once done they both rinsed and got out of the shower. Elliot got out first and handed Olivia a towel as she got out next. She watched him dry off and could not believe how sexy it was, he knew she was watching. She saw him watching her and felt very sexy knowing he was enjoying the show.

Once dry he took her hand and they headed off to bed. She sat on the bed and was about to get under the covers when he said,

"Whoa Beautiful not yet."

She stopped as he knelt in front of her and spread her legs open, he looked at her for permission and she nodded. He started to caress her using his lips and tongue, he slowly brought her to orgasm as she moved her hips to match his movements. He heard her moans go from light and slow to fast and deeper, he also tasted her fluids as they started to release from her. He also felt himself start to get very hard as he found her aroma very sexy, she put her hands on his head and ran her hands over his very short hair, as he felt her responding to his touch he lifted himself up and slid himself deep inside her and stopped for a second to let her adjust...


	13. The Line Has Been Erased

Olivia woke up with her head on Elliot's bare chest, she had her arm around his waist and he had his arms around her. She watched him sleep, she thought he looked like an angel but it was all still so surreal to her. She finally knew what it was like to be made love to, and what it was like to make love to someone she loved so deeply. It was a feeling, she realized, she had not even come close to feeling before. She spent years working with him and had made herself untouchable yet he was the one she had always wanted and after last night, she knew she was the one he had always wanted. It was just very strange for her to be lying next to him, after all these years especially after what they had done the night before, she watched as he started to stretch and open his eyes. He looked at her as he rubbed his eyes, he said smiling,

"Good morning Beautiful."

She leaned over and kissed him,

"Good morning Sexy."

He kissed her back, he watched as she got out of bed and put on an oversized tshirt. He loved looking at her naked body and watching her dress and undress as much as she loved watching him. She saw him watching her as she watched him pull on his pj bottoms and she said,

"I will put on the coffee."

He said looking at the clock,

"We have time for a hot breakfast, I will make some eggs and toast."

They went into the kitchen and together made breakfast, she got the juice and cut some strawberries and added blueberries as Elliot put eggs on the electric skillet and put bread in the four slice toaster.

They sat down and as they ate, Elliot said,

"Finally last night was a normal night's sleep for me. How about you?"

She blushed as she swallowed her mouthful of fruit and said,

"I slept very well but I will say I never in my wildest dreams thought you and I could ever be what we were last night. It was simply amazing."

He dipped his toast into his egg yolk and said as he noticed her cheeks redden but was not going to call her on it. He wanted last night to be what it was, special, and he was glad she felt the same,

"You deserve only the best and that is what I plan on giving you every day moving forward that we are together. And we have a lot of them ahead of us."

The alarm clock went off and they both laughed, it was their signal that they had to get dressed for work. Olivia had gotten into setting an alarm so that they would not be late for work. They put their empty plates in the sink and put water on them, to be washed later. They got dressed and grabbing their lunches as they headed to work, he dropped her off at the squad and they kissed before she got out of the car.

As she got to the front of the squad Elliot watched Fin meet up with Olivia as she headed up the stairs, he looked at her and said,

"Wow you look so..happy."

She laughed, she said,

"Life is good. I finally feel normal."

Fin said,

"I think Stabler has a lot to do with that."

She smiled widely,

"Yes he does."

Fin smiled,

"It suits you..."

Elliot entered his office and was met with John sitting in one of the chairs in front of his desk. Elliot was surprised and said,

"Good morning John. What brings you here this fine morning?"

John watched him put his lunch in his bar fridge and said,

"Well don't you look like the cat who swallowed the canary. What gives? Or do I need to ask?"

Elliot laughed,

"Nothing gives, I just feel amazing since the hypnosis, sleeping and eating better. So, what's up?"

John knew Olivia had more to do with his mood but knew better and let it go, he said,

"Well Babs called looking for you, she said she needs to speak with us, here is her number."

Elliot was surprised,

"Did she say why?"

John shook his head,

"She said she will be waiting for us at the LesBeStrong headquarters at 4:30 tonight. Can I confirm?"

Elliot asked,

"Are you available then?"

John,

"Yes."

Elliot said,

"Ok so am I. You can confirm it."

The day went by fast, Olivia had texted him to tell him she had caught a case that was going to go into overtime, he texted her about the meeting Babs wanted. She told him to be careful and guard his manhood, texting a smiley face so he would know she was joking. He let her know John was there to guard him sending a smiley face back.

At 4:30 John picked Elliot up at the Academy and they headed over to Babs, she was in her office when they walked into the building. She got up and hugged them both when they walked in and offered them a seat, as they sat Elliot asked,

"So Babs what can we do for you?"

She hesitated and said,

"Well guys don't look so worried this is a social call. I heard through the grapevine, Stabler that you are Benson are a 'confirmed' couple since we last spoke."

Elliot looked at her surprised and then at John who shrugged,

"Yes that is true."

She chuckled,

"Stabler, don't look so suspicious. Anyway, since you two, along with Benson, are allies of my organization I have a few other members who want to offer you some of their services for the wedding."

John laughed as Elliot looked horrified and said,

"WHOA, WHOA, WHOA! Slow down there Babs who is talking wedding?"

Babs said laughing at his discomfort watching him shift in his chair.

"Come on Stabler how many years have you been carrying a torch for Benson? And don't tell me you haven't fully and properly consummated your relationship yet..."

John started to laugh as Elliot squirmed trying to find a way out of the situation but not finding one. She saw his discomfort increase and laughed but said letting him off the hook,

"The offer is for real, but the reason I asked you both here is because of Dr. Ross, she is your dream girl Munch and your therapist Stabler, I would like her to speak here and don't know how to get a hold of her."

Elliot let out a sigh of relief,

"Why do you want her to speak?"

Babs said,

"When my group heard she was part of my case and they did not get to meet her some of my members thought it would be a good idea to have her come and talk about being assaulted and the effects of it and how to deal with it."

Elliot said,

"I will ask her. I don't know what her schedule is now that I am back at the Academy. Can I give her your number to have her call you?"

Babs gave him her new business card, and with a promise to have Sabrina call they left.

As they drove away from the building, John said,

"Well El you may have to find yourself a new doctor after this..."

Elliot laughed he said to John,

"I have never seen Sabrina flustered or rattled, this might be the time it happens."

John said,

"I bet you $100.00 she doesn't get anywhere near as rattled as you did when Babs offered you wedding services."

Elliot laughed as John dropped him off at Academy to pick up his car.


	14. Lunch With Sabrina

The next day, Sabrina met Elliot at his office and they had lunch together so that they could talk. It was the first time since the hypnosis and she wanted to make sure he was okay, Elliot sat at his desk and took his lunch out of his fridge along with his cola, Sabrina had picked up a sandwich and water on her way there. Sabrina asked,

"So how have things been since the hypnosis?"

Elliot nodded as he unwrapped his turkey and Swiss sandwich,

"Really good. It worked excellent on all fronts."

Sabrina nodded as she opened her water,

"I am glad to hear that. Things with Olivia are progressing?"

Elliot took a bite of his sandwich and nodded as he chewed,

"They are. We have been together every night since and I even asked her about her wanting a baby and she said not anymore. She said my five were enough and that she would be able to be there for Eli, my youngest since she was there when he was born. I told her that it was her decision if she wanted a baby or not. I am good with any decision she makes as long as she is also."

Sabrina swallowed her bite of her Ham, Swiss and tomato sandwich and then said,

"Good. And how is class going?"

He said,

"Excellent. 10 days til graduation and then Liv and I go on holidays and I, for one, am so looking forward to it."

Sabrina said,

"George and Rita, my caretakers, are thrilled and excited about your stay. They have been getting the house ready. I have two houses, side by side, on the same oceanfront property, there is also a sauna and pool in the backyard, I rent out my house on a short term basis and George and Rita live in the one next door. There is an adjoining gate so you have privacy but also it is access to both places. I told them that I did not know what you two would be up for..."

Elliot said,

"We want to do a helicopter ride over the islands, we want to visit all the high points of each island, maybe spend a day and night on each one. I know Olivia wants to make sure we do a real Hawaiian Luau, which I, also, really want to see."

Sabrina nodded and said,

"I will let Rita know so she can have the information ready for you both, you know, the schedules for inter island ferries, the chopper rides, luaus, etc. Then you two will know what to expect, I know there is a lot of information on the internet but the logistics need to be planned with actualities."

Elliot asked,

"I am curious, if you have oceanfront property why do you have a pool?"

Sabrina laughed,

"2 reasons, Jeff does not swim in the ocean and I can not swim laps in the ocean there is nothing to push off of so I can keep track of my distance. I mostly surf in the ocean. Which by the way we will both be down to the islands for a couple of days while you are there because I have some seminars to do on Oahu and Kauai and Jeff has a couple of days off at the same time so we are going to some quality time together. You and Olivia will not even know we are around."

Elliot nodded,

"I only see you in a professional capacity and think it would be interesting to see the famous shrink away from the office. I always remember a few years ago, we had a case where a mother lost her child and saw another little girl in the park that looked just like her dead daughter and tried to have her kidnapped and steal her, it turned out that both couples had gone to the same fertility clinic and the doctor used the first mother's eggs in 5 different women without her permission and so when DNA was run the girls had the same mother. The mother was charged and Casey Novak showed up in Queens at the basketball court where I was with my twins, who were 8 at the time, and wanted a reality check she was stumped as to what to do. I told her the story of Solomon from the Bible and she went in to court and got Patty, the little girl, so upset that the mother on trial backed off and said she would never see her again and apologized. The point of this story is that Casey said to me later, that she knew from Olivia that I kept my work life away from my home life and she did not mean to pry but she was totally not expecting me to be such a hands on dad. She said she did not know what she expected but it wasn't that."

Sabrina laughed,

"I know people only see me professionally and on book jackets, they can not understand how I can empathize with them but I am a normal person outside of the office and I do not let everyone see the off duty side of me, to be honest even though I trained George he never got to see the personal side of me. Where you are concerned after everything we have been through I have no hesitation with being personal with you. I think we are very much alike professionally and I feel that I owe you the same open door you allowed me through. By the way, when Jeff found out we are going to be on the island at the same time you and Olivia are he wants to take you Marlin fishing with George."

Elliot finished his sandwich and said quite impressed,

"I look forward to it, but I hope you feel the same way when you hear what I have to ask you."

Sabrina finished her sandwich and said,

"Ask away."

Elliot,

"Ok. Babs Duffy, invited John and I down to her office and wanted us to ask you to get in touch with her as she wants you to come and talk to the LesBeStrong group about assault and the effects of it and how to deal with it. I told her I would pass on the information."

He handed Sabrina Babs's number as Sabrina looked at him suspiciously as he was holding in a chuckle, she asked,

"You seem to be enjoying this too much. Why is that?"

Elliot said,

"Because Babs has a crush on you, and I've never seen you rattled before and this might be the time."

Sabrina asked,

"Is she serious or are you punking me?"

Elliot laughed,

"I would never punk you and yes she is serious. I guess she is trying to educate her group and hold information sessions that they want and she thinks they would find helpful as part of her resources and apparently the group requested you."

Sabrina said as she picked up Elliot's office phone and dialled Babs's number,

"Well let me find out."

Elliot got up to leave, and Sabrina said,

"Oh no you do not get to leave. Have a seat."

He chuckled as he sat back down as Babs answered the phone, Sabrina talked to her and a meeting was set up. Sabrina said to Babs as Elliot watched and listened,

"You know Babs I also think that since your group is very conscious of assault and its effects I think you should consider offering them self defence classes and I know the perfect people to teach them."

There was a pause and then she said looking at Elliot with a huge smile,

"Elliot and John would be thrilled to help your group out since they are allies and all."

Elliot shook his head and said after Sabrina hung up,

"What was that? You offering my services for self defence classes."

Sabrina laughed,

"Well come now, she is turning to us to help ease her group's mind and since you and Sargent Munch will be escorting me I figure it will be less boring if you both participate in the talk. Here is the time and date, should I inform John or will you?"

Elliot just shook his head as he took the paper and laughed as he thought of Munch's reaction,

"I will let him know."


	15. Babs Meets Sabrina

Sabrina met up with John and Elliot at the 16th precinct as John was just getting off duty and Elliot was chatting with Olivia. Fin saw her walk in and said,

"Well Doc I hope you are in for anything tonight. Babs is one of a kind."

Sabrina nodded to Fin,

"Well from what I remember I thought it only fair to bring the big guns, Munch and Stabler. I mean, I think they should share the experience and their knowledge."

Cragen walked out of his office and shook Sabrina's hand, and Olivia did the same, as Cragen said,

"I agree it is only fair."

Munch said,

"I had to cancel my date tonight..."

Fin said,

"That is why TIVO was invented."

Munch shot him a look that made the whole squad laugh. Sabrina looked at Munch and said,

"Look we all need new and exciting adventures, besides you might enjoy this evening."

She looked at Elliot and John who were both wearing suits and ties, she said,

"You two are dressed too formal, both of you need to lose the ties and suit jackets. This a casual talk and you are not protecting me I am just sharing the adventure by having you both demonstrate self defence moves. It will make it a more well rounded session. You know give them their monies worth."

John looked at Elliot and they both shrugged, as Cragen, Olivia and Fin tried to stifle their laughter. John looked at Elliot and said,

"You never said we were getting paid."

Sabrina said,

"We are not, this is a freebie favour. You gentlemen ready to go. I do not want to be late."

Elliot went up to Olivia and kissed her as he put his arm around her waist, he said,

"I love you. I will see you later tonight."

Olivia said after returning the kiss,

"I love you. Have fun tonight and I will see you when you get home."

Elliot handed her his tie and suit coat, he put his jacket on as did John. The 3 of them headed out.

As they entered the LesBeStrong offices, there was a full house. The three of them went into Babs's office, she stood up as they entered she shook John and Elliot's hands and then looked at Sabrina and checked her out. Sabrina extended her hand as John and Elliot tried not to laugh, Babs shook it a little longer than she had with the guys. Babs said looking seductively at Sabrina,

"I am so glad you could be here Dr. Ross. Many of the people we help have read your books and are really interested in hearing you talk and have questions to ask."

Sabrina said looking through the window,

"No problem. Looks like you have a full house tonight."

Babs said looking through the same window at all the faces looking up at the office,

"When word got around that you had agreed to be here, we got a lot more RSVPs back with plus ones than expected. You ready to start."

Sabrina nodded,

"Absolutely."

Babs looked at Elliot's bare chest that showed through the 3 open buttons on his shirt, she said never looking away,

"You still haven't call me. And from what I can see we could have fun."

John stopped smirking as Elliot shot him the evil eye, they all went to the front of the stage and Babs took the mic, she introduced Elliot and John and then she listed Sabrina's credentials and introduced her. Sabrina took the mic as the crowd applauded, she spoke for a half hour on assault and the effects it had and had John and Elliot demonstrate moves they could do to defend themselves and other attack moves they could use to ward off would be assailants, some of the members wanted to try the moves so Elliot let them use him as the attacker. She then took questions which lasted for 45 mins and since many of the members had her books she took the time to sign them for the next hour. During the questions some members asked Elliot and John some questions which they answered also asked them to demonstrate some defense moves which they also did. Once they were done Babs invited them to stay for drinks and appetizers, Babs took it as an opportunity to make points with Sabrina on a personal level. Babs asked Sabrina,

"So Sabrina, I can call you Sabrina, right? Are you married?"

Sabrina answered as her non body guards watched with intent amusement,

"Yes you can call me Sabrina and yes I am."

Sabrina then said trying not to show her discomfort with things getting so personal, she was not used to such concentrated and focused attention being placed on her. She looked at Elliot who continued to enjoy her discomfort as was John, but John said trying to save her and make points,

"Well Babs, this was a great night. We all have an early morning tomorrow so we need to get going."

Babs said,

"Well on behalf of my group, thank you so much for coming tonight we appreciate it. You gave an amazing talk, it was very informative."

Sabrina said,

"Thank you. I am glad we could help."

Elliot said,

"Don't be shy to ask anytime we can help out Babs."

Babs nodded and added,

"And don't forget my group's offer of wedding services. You have an open invitation."

Sabrina and John both watched Elliot as now he was the one who could not leave fast enough.

The three of them left and on the way back to the precinct to get their vehicles John asked,

"When Babs was hitting on you Doc you said you were married...how long?"

Sabrina said,

"30 years."

John handed Elliot 2 $50.00 bills as Sabrina looked on and asked,

"What was the bet?"

John said,

"Babs offered Elliot wedding services for when he marries Olivia and she rattled him badly. I bet Elliot that when Babs started hitting on you, you would not get as rattled as he did."

Sabrina shook her head and laughed, Elliot said,

"You were rattled you just got out of there faster than I did."

Sabrina said,

"I remember how interested she was when I first saw her, she was more interested in Elliot but she still took the opportunity to hit on Alexandra Cabot. I stayed as clear away as I could."

Elliot got back to the apartment just as Olivia was unplugging the kettle to make a cup of tea, he put the $100.00 on the counter as Olivia asked,

"How did it go tonight?"

He said as he tapped the bills,

"Besides dinner on Munch, it went really well. Babs likes me with my shirt open and she hit on Sabrina and was eyeing her like she was the last woman on the planet."

Olivia laughed,

"And how did Sabrina handle it?"

Elliot said,

"She handled it but it did frazzle her a little. But not as bad as when Babs offered me wedding services for our wedding."

Olivia said,

"Really? You didn't tell me..."

Elliot took the cup of tea Olivia handed him and they sat down on the couch,

"When I went with Munch to see Babs, at her request, because she wanted tonight to happen, she asked about you and me. And that is when she offered the wedding services."

Olivia asked,

"Did you tell we didn't need them?"

Elliot took a sip of the tea and answered,

"I told her not yet."


	16. Hawaii Bound

The plane landed at the Honolulu International Airport where they hopped on an inter island flight to Lihue Airport. The flight was short, but as the plane came in for its landing on Runaway 35 Olivia looked out the window and as the ocean came close she grabbed Elliot's hand, he looked at her as she pointed out the window. He loved the view and said surprised,

"You're nervous?"

She realized that she was squeezing his hand tight and said trying to sound strong,

"No I'm fine."

As the wheels touched down she squeezed tighter causing Elliot to laugh. Once the plane pulled up to the terminal she removed her hand as he squeezed it lightly and kissed her on the cheek. She smiled at him as he stood up and took their overhead bags from their compartment. Once they deboarded the plane, there was a guy standing with a sign with Stabler on it. Olivia looked at the sign and said,

"El did you arrange for a driver?"

He shook his head,

"No. I didn't."

The guy came up and said,

"The Stablers?"

Liv looked at Elliot he shrugged,

"I'm Elliot Stabler and you are?"

The gentleman put out his hand,

"My name is George. My wife, Rita and I take care of Dr. Ross's place here while she is on the mainland. We can get your bags and head over to the house."

Elliot nodded, as he put the carryons on the cart that George had waiting, he then extended his hand to George and shook the man's hand,

"Nice to meet you. Sabrina has told me so much about you and Rita. It's nice to put a face to the name."

Olivia also shook his hand,

"It is nice to meet you. I'm Olivia."

George bowed,

"Nice to meet you both also."

George pushed the cart as Elliot took Olivia's hand and they walked over to the baggage claim. George asked as they waited,

"How was your flight?"

Olivia said,

"Actually considering I am not a fan of flying it was an excellent flight. I actually slept part of the way. I don't do good with takeoffs and landings especially this close to the ocean."

Elliot said as he put their luggage on the cart,

"I just can't get over the smell here. So floral and the sound and smell of the ocean is so therapeutically peaceful."

George said,

"You both are going to love it here."

He led them through the airport to the car. As they passed the gift store, Elliot said,

"George, one second, I want to get a paper and maps."

George nodded and stopped, he said,

"No problem."

Elliot picked up a local paper and a state paper, while Olivia picked up a travel guide, local map and individual island maps. She also noticed that they had local coconut water, she picked up 4 bottles. Once in the car George said,

"Dr. Ross has a vehicle at the house that normally only she uses but she has made it available for you both to use for the month."

As they left the airport and were driving away, Elliot noticed a helicopter and asked,

"Does the island have chopper tours?"

George looked towards the helicopter and nodded,

"Yes. That over there is Blue Hawaiian Helicopters, they have all kinds of packages that you can take to see the inland part of the island and anywhere that is not accessible by car. Much of this island is seen on horseback or hiking and biking. The majority of our population is along the edges of the island so when you look at a map of Kauai you will notice that our roads do not complete a circle and are mostly on the outer edge. All roads, for the most part, end at a State Park. This island is great for zip lining, mountain tubing, there are ATV adventures, there is something for everyone it just depends on what your budget is and what you want to do. Now back at the house we have a coupon book with many adventures in it that you are welcome to use, we also have mountain bikes at the house so you can trail ride if you want. I mean, you can be as busy as you want to be, or not."

Olivia noticed as they drove there was a ferry in the water. She asked George about it,

"That ferry is an inter island ferry for Maui. Right now the only way to get off this island is by air and Dr. Ross has her own jet when she is here. She has clearance to land at the smaller airfields as they are not as busy. I understand that you plan on going to the other islands."

Elliot said,

"We want to see all the islands, some might be day trips and others may be longer."

George said,

"I know she has made the jet available to you if needed. But she will work that out with you two once you are settled and know what you want to do. There are also inter-island flight charters."

Olivia added,

"The first couple of days I'm not going anywhere. I want to get used to the heat and the sun and just get the lay of the land and work on my tan. I never realized how white I am from city living until I come here and everyone is so tanned and healthy looking."

George said as he pulled into a driveway,

"The healthy look comes from good eating and a lot of sun. We are here. I'll help you with the bags."

As they got out of the car, they were met by George's wife Rita. She was a bubbly Hawaiian lady and just like George, she came over and shook both of their hands and welcomed them,

"Aloha, welcome to Kauai the Garden Island."

Olivia said,

"Thank you, this is our first time to the islands and we are so looking forward to this month."

Elliot shook her hand,

"If you and George are any indication of how the native Hawaiians are we are going to love this trip."

Rita nodded her head,

"Oh you two are going to have a blast."

Olivia laughed as George shook his head and smirked as he walked away carrying their bags inside. Rita said as she noticed him,

"You two must be hungry."

Elliot said looking at Olivia,

"I don't know about you Liv but I could eat right now."

Rita sat taking Olivia's hand and pulling her inside,

"Let's let the men bring in the luggage and have George show Elliot the car. I'll show you the house."

Rita took her from room to room, Olivia loved the openness and the breeziness of the place. The windows were big and covered with sheers, the place had so much sunlight. Rita said,

"What do you think?"

Olivia said,

"This place is beautiful. I might never leave here."

Rita laughed. She said,

"Here are the keys to the house, also you have cable tv, high speed internet and National phone service, which means you can call any island and the mainland, even Canada if you want too, it is all covered. If there are any problems with those services let us know and we will call to get it fixed."

Rita took her into the last room which was the kitchen. She entered it and was hit with so many amazing smells, she walked over to the french doors and looked out onto a stone patio with a hot tub and sauna. There was also a pool. Rita joined her and pointed to the house next door and said,

"George and I live right there. You will have to come over for dinner while you are here. There is a gate that separates the houses for privacy but we usually leave it open when Dr. Ross and her husband are not here."

Olivia asked very surprised,

"Dr. Ross is married?"

Rita put her hand over her mouth,

"Oops the way she talks about Elliot I thought she would have told you both about him."

Olivia said,

"I'll have to ask Elliot but I didn't know this."

Elliot and George returned. Elliot was putting the car keys in his pocket. He and George had left the bags on the patio. Elliot looked around the house and came back saying,

"This place is beautiful. We are going to have fun."

Olivia said,

"Did you know Sabrina is married?"

Elliot nodded,

"Yes. 30 years. Her husband Jeff is a civil engineer and works overseas a lot. Why?"

Olivia said,

"Rita mentioned him and I had no idea."

Elliot said,

"Because she is with the FBI, she keeps her private life very private. I only know because he came to Greenwood while I was there to see Sabrina before he went overseas again. She doesn't use her married name with the Feds, she does not want anyone making the connection, it keeps them both safer."

Rita chuckled,

"I always laughed when he said he had to go overseas considering he has to go overseas to get here from the mainland. Are you two ready to eat?"

Elliot took Olivia's hand as she looked amused by the comment, and he said,

"It smells amazing in here. You are both staying right?"

George looked at Rita and nodded,

"Yes. We figured you might have questions about places to go. We have the house next door, I usually come clean the pool and water the plants early in the morning. Rita comes in and dusts and cleans the house twice a week when the house is empty."

Rita chuckled as she put out platters of local food,

"I have the next month off and am going to enjoy it."

Olivia laughed. She helped Rita put out the platters as George showed Elliot the big screen tv and the two computers with wifi. Elliot said,

"Liv has her own laptop that she carries with her. We just need the wifi password. I Skype with my youngest son every night. I will have to get used to the time difference."

George said,

"It is on the back of the modem. Before we go home I will make sure you are connected."

They went back into the kitchen and joined the ladies. The four of them filled their plates with food and headed out to the patio to eat. Rita had already put ice tea and lemonade on the table and 4 place settings. They sat down. Rita said,

"The only thing that Sabrina told me not to make was sushi. She said Elliot you were not a fan."

Olivia laughed. Elliot said,

"I'll eat anything else as long as it is cooked. My daughters have tried for a long time to get me to eat raw fish and have never been able to."

Olivia said,

"Maybe this month will change that."

Elliot smiled at her and shook his head as he took a mouthful of fruit salad. Olivia playfully slapped him as George and Rita laughed.


	17. Their First Night in Paradise

After George and Rita left, Elliot and Olivia took their bags into the bedroom at the back of the house facing the ocean. The beige room had a balcony off of it and was very private, it had big trees growing along the side of the balcony so they could sit out there and not be seen unless someone was on a boat on the ocean. There was also a private beach area they could get to off that same balcony. Elliot stripped down putting on just a pair of shorts, Olivia put on a very light nightgown. He had locked up the house as Olivia poured them a glass of wine and sat down on the double lounger on the balcony. Elliot joined her as she put her head on his shoulder, he kissed her forehead, she looked up and they kissed on the lips very deeply. Once they pulled apart Liv looked out over the ocean and took a very deep breath, Elliot said,

"This place is beautiful. I can't wait to see what this island and the whole state has to offer."

Liv said,

"Sabrina really knows how to help start a vacation off right. I really like George and Rita."

Elliot nodded,

"I do too. They are a great welcoming committee. I hope we get to see 40 years married like they have."

Liv sat up and looked at him. He took a small box out of his shorts pocket and got off the lounger, he got down on one knee and opened the box facing her and said,

"Olivia Benson, you and I have been doing this dance for over 12 years. What started out as a work partnership, turned into a very deep friendship based on love, respect and trust. I don't want to waste anymore time, I am in love with you, will you marry me?"

She was so stunned, her hand went to her mouth as the unexpectedness of the proposal made her gasp and very emotional, she could not stop the tears that rolled down her cheeks. She kissed him and said nodding,

"Well it is about time ! Absolutely I will marry you."

He put the single set 4 carat diamond ring on her finger, she was shocked that it fit perfectly. Before she could say anything he stretched out beside her and laying on his side he kissed her deeply. She kissed him back and as he went to lie on top of her she pushed him back never taking her lips off his as she rolled him on his back and lay on top of him. She felt him hardening under her and knew it was not the ring box that he had put back in his pocket. They continued to kiss deeply and passionately as Elliot slid his hands under her nightgown and up over her butt and back. She sat up and removed her nightgown giving him full view and access. She went to get off of him to help him with his shorts when he pulled her down and continued to kiss her. As he did he slid his hands down to his shorts and pushed them down as she felt him do this she lifted herself up enough for him to have easy access never leaving the kiss. He felt her lift herself up as he pushed his shorts down and then he felt her warmth and wetness on him as she lowered herself down on to him. He kicked his shorts off as they continued to kiss which continued to get deeper as their tongues connected. His hands went into her hair and then down her back and butt where he caressed her causing her to gasp with pleasure. She spread her legs wider to give him access to her warmth where he slid his finger in and out of her and she moved to match his motion causing him to get very hard and very erect. She lifted herself high enough for him to slide himself inside her. Their matching movements caused them both to orgasm not once, not twice, but multiple times.

Olivia woke up to the feel of the hot sun on her bare body, she looked over and Elliot was still asleep holding her in his arms against his bare body. Her movement woke him up and he looked at her and said sleepily as he stretched,

"Good morning Beautiful. Well that was quite the welcome to Hawaii night."

She laughed as they kissed,

"Good morning Gorgeous."

She then looked down at her hand and said looking at the ring,

"So it wasn't a dream. You really did propose."

He nodded,

"Absolutely, you were right it is about time. I don't want to waste anymore time. I know I am going to be with you for the rest of my life and it will not be as friends. We are going to have an amazing life together."

They kissed again and made passionate love under the sun before starting their day...

As they sat outside having a breakfast of fruit, eggs, bacon, toast and coffee, Olivia said looking at the pool,

"I have always wondered why people have pools when they live right on the ocean."

Elliot said,

"I don't know about other people, but I do know why Sabrina has one, she said Jeff, her husband does not like swimming in the ocean and because she does laps every morning and she can't do laps in the ocean there is nothing to push off of ."

Olivia nodded and said,

"I will be using the ocean, what about you?"

Elliot,

"Same for me. You lead and I will follow."

They headed up to the bedroom and Olivia pulled out her new royal blue bikini. Elliot went into his bag and looked for his swim trunks, Olivia said,

"What is wrong?"

Elliot said still looking through his bag,

"I could have sworn I packed my swim trunks. But I can't find them."

Olivia looked at him with a smile,

"You did pack them but when Casey and I went bikini shopping I found the perfect suit for you."

She handed him a plastic bag. He looked at her and then opened the bag and pulled out the suit, he said looking at it,

"My boxers are bigger than his suit."

She laughed and said seductively holding her string bikini up,

"I thought that when you and I are alone you could wear these and then when we go out to public beaches and scuba diving you could wear these..."

And she pulled out the ones he had packed, he grabbed them and pulled her to the bed and started tickling her, she laughed as he said,

"If you want to see me in as little as possible you just need to ask."

She said,

"I get you naked every night. But you and I are pasty white city people who need to fit in and not stick out."

He laughed,

"So me showing more of my pasty white skin is a way to fit in?"

She said,

"I figure the more tanned we get the easier the sun will be to handle and the less burnt we will be. Do you have something else in mind?"

He said standing nude in front of her,

"Yes. Lineless tanning."

She stood looking at him thinking about all those years ago when he was undercover and she went to see him because he had not called in and he answered the door in nothing but his boxers which she thought at the time left little to her imagination, she had since found out differently and said, admiring the view,

"You never struck me as the nude type. I just assumed because of your Catholic raising nudity was for baby making and showers..."

He laughed, and said,

"There is so much more to me than you realize..."

After a couple of days of just relaxing, walking the beach and swimming in the ocean, they were well on their way to be well tanned. She walked into their room looking for Elliot, she saw him laying on a towel on the lounger of the deck outside their room naked continuing his lineless tan,he saw her,

"Hey Beautiful, come join me."

She looked at him and said,

"Out here?"

He laughed,

"Well it is where the sun is. Besides are you chicken?"

She knew he was trying to bait her,

"No I am not chicken. I...I..."

He clucked at her and laughed. She was not going to let him win. She stripped and stretched out beside him. He handed her the lotion and watched her apply it. She looked over at him and said as she applied the lotion to her breasts slowly and sensually. She watched as his body reacted to what he was seeing. She said,

"I hope you let me watch you lotion up during this trip."

He smiled and said,

"You are welcome to watch me anytime."

She leaned back on the lounger loving the heat on her body. He leaned over and kissed her deeply, his hand then slid down her body to her wetness as she opened her legs and let him slip his fingers inside her. She loved the way he made her feel as he slid his fingers in and out of her causing her to get very wet very fast. He watched her close her eyes and her whole body stiffened as he started to twist his fingers inside her slowly bringing her to orgasm. She started to move her hips in rhythm with his fingers until she came to the most incredible orgasm as he hit her G spot. As her body came down from its orgasm shuddering, she looked at him and said,

"I love when you do that."

He smiled,

"Good because I love doing it."

As he lay back down she took him in her hand and started to stroke him, his breathing started to quicken as she started off slow and then as he got harder she stroked faster. The faster she stroked, the wetter she got and as she felt his tip get wet she knew he was ready she slid on top of him and took him deep inside and they started to move as one. She then felt the first of many orgasms they would have together. Once she felt him soften she slid off of him and put her head on his chest as he put his arms around her and said,

"You and I get better and better all the time."

She said,

"They say practise makes perfect."

He nodded as she said,

"I love you."

He kissed her,

"I love you."


	18. Maui Bound

After a couple of days, of relaxing and surfing the internet to add to the information that George and Rita had given them, they decided to fly to Maui to see the sites. They wanted to see as much as possible but not spend a fortune. He had been lucky that after he joined the police force as a young man, his oldest brother was a financial planner and helped him plan for the future with stocks and bonds, he had put so much per cheque away for the kids college fund and now that he was retired his NYPD pension covered all of Richard and Elizabeth college costs along with Eli's costs and his academy money was his, Kathy remarried so alimony was no longer an option. When they divorced the only income he had was his pension so that the costs were based on, but they were both smart when it came to money so they took the twins college money out of their combined money, Kathy got the house and car, and then they split the rest of the money in half. Once he started at the academy that money was his and he got his brother to invest what was left of his pension. He was not rich but he was more than comfortable.

Elliot had never cleaned a pool before so after his early morning run on the beach and while Olivia still slept, he grabbed a glass of coconut juice and went out on the patio where he saw George with the pool vacuum, George looked at him as Elliot took his shirt off and said,

"I am almost done here."

Elliot said,

"That is okay, besides I have never cleaned a pool before and it is never too late to learn."

George laughed,

"I can show you how."

Elliot laughed,

"Don't worry this is a one time thing. I'm the type of guy who likes to try everything once so your job is safe."

George laughed,

"I am not worried. Besides I like showing people how to do things."

Elliot spent the morning helping George until Olivia was ready to go. They were flying to Maui for a couple of days and then taking the ferry to the Big Island for the rest of the week and then they would meet Sabrina and Jeff at the Kona airport and then fly to Oahu on her private jet.

They checked intoOutrigger Aina Nalu in Lahaina as it was close to everything, Olivia was getting dressed in her lightweight linen outfit of shorts and a blouse, Elliot walked in the room fresh out of the shower and proceeded to get dressed in a lightweight linen outfit of shorts and a short sleeve shirt. He had noticed over the last few days that not a lot of island guys wore muscle shirts, he had asked George about it and was told that most guys go shirtless, and that if you do see a lot of muscle shirts they are usually visitors. He also told them that the Hawaiian shirts that are sold outside of Aloha Stadium on Oahu at the marketplace are also a clear indicator of visitors because the shirts are a novelty, yet very good at keeping one cool.

Once ready they took a cab to Flying Hawaiian where they were going to go zip-lining, they both loved adventure and this was one they wanted to do.

When they got there, there were 12 other people looking for the same adventure, they were asked to all sign waivers, it cost each of them $250, once that was done they all loaded into 4 seater ATVs to go 10 minutes up the mountain. Once they were at the top, they each got a helmet and harness along with a 30 minute lesson on safety and proper technique. They learnt that Flyin' Hawaiian had a 3,200 foot cable. The flight down the line would take 4 hours at 65 mph, they were told to do a starfish so that they did not go too fast, they flew over trees and along side the mountain as they flew over the jungle. Olivia tied her hair into a ponytail sticking it out of the hole of her sunhat under the mandatory helmet and went first as Elliot put his ball cap on backwards under the helmet and followed, he wanted to make sure she was okay. As she flew over the top of the trees she was shocked at how beautiful the whole scene was under her, as she looked ahead all she saw was miles of beauty. Elliot had zip-lined before with the marines and loved the feeling of freedom he felt as the wind caressed his body, he looked around and saw a hidden waterfall between the trees. They were impressed with the shear beauty and tranquillity of the island. She got off first and knew she had a huge smile on her face as she turned to watch him come down the last 15 minutes of the line and she couldn't believe how relaxed he he was lying back and flipping himself upside down. The handler who was standing with her said,

"This can't be his first time. He is way too relaxed and seems very experienced."

Olivia said,

"I don't know if he has done this before, but I wouldn't be surprised since he is such a daredevil."

The handler said,

"I have to say you looked great out there and that smile you had seems clued on. This might be a dumb question but did you have fun?"

She said,

"Yes I did. It was amazing so beautiful but most of all so peaceful."

Elliot saw her watching him like he had been watching her. He had wished they could have been closer together but due to safety they couldn't but he knew she had a great time he could tell the way she let herself go and relax just like he did. Once he got to the end he slowed himself right down and hung just before the deck with the biggest smile she had ever seen on him it actually made his eyes twinkle. He pulled himself to the deck and the handler unhooked him. He stepped on the deck and said as he kissed Olivia,

"I don't know about you but I could do this again."

Olivia laughed and nodded,

"So could I. I really enjoyed this it was so peaceful and relaxing. I would definitely give up another 4 hours and do this again."

Elliot said,

"I am so looking forward to the rest of this week on Maui to see what else this island has to offer."

The handler said,

"There is a lot to see."

And with that he gave them a sheet with a bunch of activities that they could do some with a cost some free. Olivia and Elliot headed back to the car and grabbed the bottles of water they had there and each downed one, then took another one and started to drink it but slower. They went back to their hotel and decided where to go for dinner, Elliot knew she really wanted him to try Sushi and he wasn't really keen on it but who knows. They were of the same mind when it came to food when they travelled, they were big into eating local and traditional to the place they were at, his theory has always been 'you don't eat fish at a pasta house and you don't eat Italian food in Thailand' and Olivia felt the same way. They had gotten recommendations on the best local traditional food and ended up at Maui Fish and Pasta which was a local farm to table restaurant. The waitress took them to their seat by a window and handed them their menus asking,

"Would you like to start with a drink?"

Olivia nodded,

"Yes white wine for me."

Elliot nodded,

"I'll have the same."

The waitress walked away to get their wine as they looked at the menu. Olivia saw the appetizers and saw the sushi, she said to Elliot,

"I am going to order the Fresh Seared Ahi Sushi Nigirl."

Elliot looked at it and saw it was Hawaiian Ahi on Vinegar Sushi Rice topped with house made Ginger Cilantro Pesto and Hot Red Chilies. He liked spicy food but just the idea of 'lightly seared' was not winning him over but he guessed it was better than raw. He knew Liv would eat most of the sushi so he ordered his favourite Crispy Calamari which was lightly battered and tossed in Balsamic Vinegar with Spinach, Red Onion and Local Farm fresh tomatoes and finished with a Chili Aioli. The waitress came back with their wine and took their appetizer order. She then said,

"I'll be back for your main dish when I bring your appetizers."

They both nodded as Olivia looked around the restaurant as it started to fill up. Elliot said as he looked at the menu,

"You know I was never real big into where my food came from but my girls they are huge into it and would love the fact that this is farm to table cooking."

Olivia looked down at her menu and said,

"I think that I will have the Pan Roasted Cold Water Lobster Tail."

Elliot nodded and said,

"I am going to the KOBE burger and sweet potato fries."

She chuckled as she said,

"No matter where we go you find your beloved burger."

He laughed and said,

"I am not overly adventurous when it comes to food."

She knew he wasn't but she also knew he was always willing to try most things once.

The waitress returned with their appetizers and took their meal orders. Elliot immediately put a piece of calamari into his mouth and said to Olivia as he pushed his plate to share with her,

"You have to try these they are excellent."

She was eating a piece of sushi and nodded as she pushed her plate in front of Elliot who looked at it and saw there had been 8 pieces on the platter. He took a deep breath as Olivia watched him cringe as he looked at the sushi, she said,

"Try one."

He took another deep breath as he watched her take another one and eat it. She took out her camera phone and filmed hm as he took one and put it in his mouth real fast and chewed it even faster and swallowed along with a gulp of white wine causing Olivia to laugh. He then took another piece of calamari and ate it saying,

"Okay I have tried sushi and now back to my regular cooked food."

Olivia watched him with amusement, he looked at her and smirked, she asked,

"How was it?"

He shrugged,

"I won't be adding it to my diet anytime soon but "

Olivia continued to film as she took a piece of calamari and ate it, she said, to him,

" You didn't have to eat it that fast, it was not going to bite you back."

He laughed as he took another calamari,

"You never know it looked like it could jump off the plate."

Olivia shook her head and stopped filming the video of him eating it, she would text it to Kathleen and Elizabeth, as she had promised that she would if he could be convinced to try it. Once she stopped filming and they finished their appetizers. The waitress came to see if everything was okay, she saw the empty plates and took them and said,

"I will be right back with your meals."

Olivia said as she yawned,

"I am loving being tired from the fresh air and sun instead of the city tired we feel from being part of the hustle and bustle."

He nodded,

"I didn't have a really good fitful nights sleep until about 4 months after entering the clinic. It took me that much time to get my head clear enough to sleep and to get used to the quiet."

The waitress brought them their meals which they split in two and shared.

The next morning as they walked hand in hand along the clear turquoise waters of Kite Beach they watched the Kite Flyers. Olivia squeezed Elliot's hand, which he had learnt meant she was nervous but still game because she was as much a daredevil as he was. They arrived at the Kite flying school of Hawaii. They were given their options for courses and both opted for the 1 day course which cost $270 each. They heard one of the other guys say that Kite boarding was very addictive and that it is a combination of paragliding and surfing. Once enrolled in the course they were instructed to remove their shoes and socks, and taught how to attach the board to their feet just like snowboarding, which Elliot had done with Richard. They also had massive inflatable kites. The 40 mph NW trade winds made it perfect weather. The kite wing span was determined by the flyers weight, Olivia had the 23 foot span and Elliot had the 40 ft wing span. They were taught how to stand on their boards, by first, strapping the board on and sitting in the water and as the kite rises and they stand up, the wind picks them up so no effort was needed and then they were airborne. The kite lifted Elliot 30 ft in the air for 30 seconds at a speed of 50 mph. Olivia stood on the beach and filmed him. When it came to her turn she was not as much a natural as he was but the point in it was to have fun and continue to live by their motto, 'try everything at least once'. It was new to Elliot to be with a woman who was as adventurous as he was and not afraid to try things.


	19. The Big Island

The next morning Olivia woke up before the alarm clock with her head on Elliot's chest as he started to stretch while he woke up also. He leaned over and kissed her saying,

"Good morning Beautiful."

She kissed him back,

"Good morning Sexy. I love you."

He said as he held her,

"I love you."

She said,

"I never tire of waking up this way. I hope it never ends."

He stroked her hair,

"Me neither. I love making love to you every night and waking up with you every morning. It seems so surreal to me but more than natural."

She leaned up to kiss him and he kissed her back. She looked at the clock beside him and said,

"We should get going so we don't miss the ferry to the Big Island."

Elliot looked over at the clock and said,

"We have 2 hours before it leaves."

He started to kiss her and run his hands over her nude body, he never got tired of it. She returned the kiss and stretched to give him full access, she never in a million years thought it could be like this between them. She ran her hands over his body as he moved to give her all the access she wanted she started to stroke his erection and he stopped her causing her to look at her. He said,

"I like the intimacy of just touching you and you touching me. Don't get me wrong I love making love to you and you making love to me but I just like the way we are right now. Unless you need me inside you."

She shook her head and said,

"No I like just touching. You make me feel so sexy and beautiful."

He kissed her forehead and said,

"I want you to know that every time I touch you doesn't mean I need or want sex, it just means I want to touch you."

She looked at him in the eyes for a few minutes and noticed something was different. She asked,

"Something is different. What has changed?"

He lay on his side and putting his hands behind her and clasping them together he rested them on her butt. He said,

"I had time to think on the zip line ride yesterday and it hit me that you make me the luckiest man in the world. As I watched you fly down the line in front of me hearing you laugh like a school girl, I realized I want more from our relationship – I don't want it to be a normal life that we live, you know - work, home, sex a couple of times a week, etc. I lived that kind of life and I don't want that with you. As I watched the beauty of the land move in slow motion beneath me I thought about my life, where I have been, all the things that have happened to me, all the things I wanted to do that I didn't get the chance to do. And it hit me hard that I don't want that life, you and I have been given a second chance and I don't want either of us to waste it. I think, you and I need to set some conditions on our life together..."

She suddenly got scared, she thought this was his way of backing out...he saw her look change and he said as he caressed her butt,

"Don't be scared. I realized during that 4 hour flight, that you and I are meant to be together but in a different way than most people. The conditions we are meant to have for our relationship are: 1. we are meant to fall asleep making love to each other every night we are together, 2. we are meant to wake up in each other's arms nude every morning we are together, 3. we are meant to see the world through each others eyes, 4. we are meant to show our love in everyday ways that are not necessarily physical like we are now, 5. We are not meant to be a settled couple, we are meant to be people of the world..."

She took a breath not realizing she had been holding her breath, as he continued,

"As I passed over those trees that were 100s of years old I saw my life with you and I saw us travelling to parts unknown. I saw us with a rich full rewarding life. I didn't see just you or me, I saw us and we are happy. There was you and your work, your solo events with Melinda, Casey and Alex, there was me with my work and solo activities with my kids. Then there was us, bigger and stronger than the individual us, we unconditionally love each other through the good and the bad. We play hard but we love harder."

She looked at him silently for a couple of minutes before she said,

"You never cease to amaze me. I have never heard you talk like this before but I do agree with you. I have always thought we had something very special and I am more than happy to agree to the conditions set before us."

The alarm went off and as Olivia leaned over to turn it off she kissed him and said,

"We have a flight to catch if we want to keep our time slot to go up to Mt. Kilauea to see the volcano."

Elliot nodded as he kissed her back and said as they got out of bed,

"My intention was not to scare you I just wanted you to know."

**MT. KILAUEA**

They took their packed bags with them up the mountain, they booked into the Lavahouse which was a bed and breakfast that was situated on the side of the mountain, it cost $100 a night. The roads around the B&B were blocked each way from the lava flow they even saw a stop sign just at the end of the road but just before the lava flow. The lava was hard enough for them to walk on too. They discovered that there were 130 miles of lava covered terrain to be explored on foot. After that they then went over to Paradise Helicopters. It cost them $250 each, they were given a 10 minute safety course where they also learnt that this most active volcano was 40,000 feet above sea level and that Kilauea means spewing in Hawaiian. They got into a helicopter which had no doors just seat belts, they were going to be in the air over the volcano for 50 minute. They flew within 500 feet of the volcano, Olivia slid her hand into Elliot's, they were so close they could smell it and feel the heat coming off the lava as they flew so close to the volcano that they could almost touch it. Afterwards they flew over to the ocean to be able to see where the lava goes into the water and when it hit the water there is a huge cloud of steam because it is so hot and smokey. They could see the bright red of the lava hitting the water. When they were done, they headed back to the B&B, as they entered the front door, Lucy the owner met them with a note and said,

"You got a message while you were gone."

Elliot took it and while he read it, Lucy said,

"I hope you two are hungry we are having roasted wild boar."

Elliot hung up the phone and smiled when he heard about the boar,

"I have been wanting to try boar since we got here."

Olivia laughed at his excitement, she loved seeing the little boy in him come out. She thought she knew almost everything about him, but what she was learning about him that totally took her by surprise was he could be a child without being childish. Lucy looked at them and said,

"Dinner will be ready in half an hour if you want to go and freshen up."

Olivia nodded and said taking Elliot's hand,

"I would like to grab a fast shower just to get the heat of the day off."

Once in their room, Olivia asked,

"What was the message about?"

Elliot said as he processed to undress,

"It was from Sabrina, she wanted me to call her. She and Jeff are in Kauai and are flying to Oahu in a couple of days and said they would pick us up at the Kona airport not tomorrow but the following morning and wanted to know if we needed them to bring us anything. I told her a couple of sets of clean clothes for each of us would be good."

Olivia nodded as she proceeded to the bathroom naked with Elliot following her. They took a short shower and put clean clothes on and headed down to the dining room. Once they entered the room they saw 5 other couples and one huge round table that was set for all of them. Olivia noticed two empty places that were sit by sit which had nameplates with Olivia and Elliot's names on them. They sat down as each person at the table introduced themselves and where they were from. There was Frank and Martha from Utah; Scott and Carol from Vancouver, Canada; Donna and Myles from Wichita, Kansas; Mark and Gary from Portland, Oregon; Connie and Richard from Washington, DC. Olivia was sitting beside Carol and Elliot was beside Gary. Olivia liked that the fact that she could see everyone at the table and chat with more than one person. Elliot sat and listened as Donna asked,

"How did each of you meet and become a couple? And how long have you been together? I'll start if that is ok?"

The whole table nodded as Mark said,

"Absolutely."

Donna said,

"Myles and I were high school sweethearts. He was the bad boy that all the girls wanted but I caught. We have been married for 40 years.

Carol went next,

"Scott and I met at work. We were friends in unhappy relationships and one day just decided to start dating. That was 10 years ago we married 4 ago."

Then it was Olivia's turn, she felt Elliot's hand on her leg as he lightly squeezed it,

"Elliot and I met at work 15 years ago. We were work partners for 12 years and then he retired and left for 3 years. We got reconnected this year and are engaged to be married. We haven't set a date yet."

Everyone congratulated them. Elliot was a little embarrassed, he hated being the center of attention no matter how short a time it was for. The rest of the couples took their turn as they finished, Lucy came in with her helpers pushing a cart that contained huge bowls and plates of food, which they put in the middle of the table, Lucy said,

"Everyone dig in and enjoy."

Before anyone could dig in, Mark said,

"Would anyone be offended if we did a blessing for the food?"

Elliot was surprised, he hadn't been around a table that said grace since he was a kid, Carol said,

"I think that is a great idea."

They all bowed their heads as Mark said a small prayer,

"Thank you Lord for this amazing food and all this great company that have gathered together to partake in it. We thank you in Jesus's name Amen."

Elliot blessed himself as did many other people at the table. The food got passed around and Elliot filled his plate, he tasted the boar and was in heaven it was so tender and delicious. He looked at Olivia who smiled as she said,

"Everything is so delicious."

The table was lively with talk and laughter. Olivia watched Elliot as he took part in the conversation which surprised her because he was not big on small talk and was not overly comfortable with complete strangers. Olivia was just enjoying the night and company all around. Once they were all done with the main course, Lucy brought out bowls of fresh fruit and some macadamia nuts which were grown on the island. As she put the nuts down she said,

"Just a little Kona factoid, these nuts were grown by Roseanne Barr on her farm here on the island."

Scott was a big fan of Roseanne Barr's and asked,

"Is her farm far from here? I would love to meet her."

Lucy said,

"It is a few miles from here."

This comment led to other people expressing their desire to meet famous people, which led Martha to say,

"In a couple of days we need to be on Oahu because we are going to a seminar where Dr. Sabrina Ross is speaking and I really want to meet her. I have all her books and am hoping to get her to sign them."

Gary said,

"I didn't know she is speaking in Oahu this week. You know I think she is very sexy and if I weren't with Scott and might consider..."

Scott shot Gary a look that made Elliot laugh. The table looked at him as he said,

"I'm sorry it just makes me happy to know that all relationship regardless of gender are created equal in the death stare looks."

This caused the other men at the table because they knew what he was saying. Martha then asked,

"Has anyone here ever met the good Doctor or someone famous?"

Olivia looked at Elliot who looked like he wanted to crawl under the table. Myles and Connie both said they had heard her talk but never met her. Connie then said,

"Elliot you suddenly went quiet. How come?"

Olivia said nothing as he looked at her almost like he was pleading for her to get him out of the situation. Carol then jumped on the bandwagon and asked,

"Why Elliot are you holding out on us?"

He shook his head and just laughed,

"No I am not holding out on you good folks. I just never understood the fascination surrounding famous people. I always figure they put their pants on one leg at a time."

Gary said,

"That is man speak for I know a lot more than I am allowed to say."

Elliot asked,

"Why do you think I know her?"

Carol said,

"When we got back earlier I heard Lucy on the phone taking a message and I heard her say ok Dr. Ross I will make sure Mr. Stabler gets the message. Then I saw Lucy hand you that same message."

Olivia tried to stifle her laugh as she watched Elliot try to go into cop mode to get himself out of this conversation. She stayed quiet because she had nothing to offer. Elliot said,

"I do know her but only because I worked with her unit of the FBI a couple of time when I was a NYPD cop."

Gary asked,

"She is as serious in real life as she looks on the jacket covers."

Elliot said,

"I have never once seen her crack a smile. So I would say probably more serious."

The conversation was changed to other things as they all had after dinner tea and coffee. Once they all were done, everyone called it a night. Once in their room Olivia said,

"Sorry about not saving you at dinner but I don't what to say or how to help you with that conversation."

He took her in his arms and kissed her saying,

"No worries. I have never run into anyone who was a big fan of hers."

They lay in bed and as they kissed they realized the walls were paper thin as they heard Martha and Frank making love. Olivia started to laugh as Elliot caressed her nude body and said,

"I think we could be as loud as we want and those two will drown us out."


	20. Oahu Bound

The next morning they had breakfast with everyone and said their goodbyes, Elliot tipped and thanked Lucy for her hospitality. They headed back to their normal hotel, once they got there they got in the shower together and made love. They had wanted to make love the night before but when they realized the issue with the paper thin walls Olivia did not want to take a chance. Now that they were surrounded by cement filled walls the sky was the limit.

They then went for lunch. Once done they ordered a couple of sandwiches and some Gatorade to take with them that night. Olivia said,

"Diving at night. This one I am not too sure about."

Elliot took her hand, and said,

"You know Beautiful, I really want to do this. If you decide not to do it I have no issue with that. You have done every single thing so far and I guarantee you nothing is mandatory, this is _**our**_ vacation so if you want to do something else than by all means add it and we will do it."

She squeezed his hand as they walked and said,

"Really? Hmmm..."

He squeezed back,

"Absolutely. What did you have in mind?"

She nodded and said,

"A Spa day."

She was suggesting a spa day, and as he looked at her he could see that she fully expected him to be too much of a man to agree to it. She was a beautiful lady and she took care of herself, why had it never crossed his mind she would want to do this. As she watched his reaction she was fully expecting him to try and fight it. She was shocked, when he said,

"You find and book the spa of your choice and I will join you. You plan it the way you want it, don't hold back. I'm all in."

She looked at him and could see he was serious about it. He could see she was trying to read him and he said,

"I'm serious, I have one request - a couple's massage. I really could use one."

She nodded in surprise and said for effect,

"So let's see, manicures, pedicures, facials, and massages."

He nodded and kissed her causing her to laugh.

They were scheduled to leave for Kailua-Kona 3 hours before nightfall to take the 25 minute boat ride 5 miles off shore to wait for the sun to set. This so far was their cheapest activity at $130 for 5 hours. Olivia and Elliot were dressed in their swimsuits and linen blouses and shirts. Olivia decided she did not want to go under so the owner, Eric who just happened to be Rita's nephew, charged her for basically the boat ride and asked her not to say anything to the other participants because he was doing her a favour she readily agreed. Elliot was still going under, there were 7 other couples going down. Gary and Scott who they had met at Lavahouse, were there and so was another couple they had met on the ferry from Maui. Olivia and Marla had been talking, Marla and Joe were from Vancouver and travelling the same as they were, the only difference was that Olivia and Elliot had a home base with George and Rita on Kauai. Originally Marla was suppose to go diving with Joe but when she found out that Olivia wasn't going she was relieved because she didn't want to go either but didn't want to be the only one left onboard, she was even more pleased that Joe could go with Elliot so she did not feel so bad.

On the boat ride over they had their sandwiches, which the waitress had packed in plastic take out containers for them, with everyone else since they could not go under within 2 hours of eating, so eating now gave them 3 hours before heading under which was more than enough time. Once they got to the Campfire, which was a 6 ft ring of rocks underwater where the divers put a box of lights to lure the plankton which in turn draws in the Manta, they were given their equipment: a wet suit, mask, flippers and a flashlight. Olivia took out her camera and took pictures and video as she watched Elliot put on the skin tight wet suit which accented every part of his body, he looked up at her as he finished putting it on and saw her smiling very seductively at him. He started to laugh and went into model pose making her laugh. Olivia noticed that both Gary and Scott were watching Elliot also. Once changed, they were given a 15 min orientation lesson and then once it was dark they hit the deep dark sea, the dive was 45 minutes long. Olivia and Marla watched from the boat, they could see the lights below and the silver of the Manta Ray. Eric told them that the Majestic Pacific Manta Ray was a relative of the shark and night time is the best time to see them.

Under the water Elliot turned on his flashlight, adding to the light that was already coming from the campfire and 13 other flashlights. There was also a diver filming the dive as, unbeknown to Olivia, he had paid a little extra to have his dive filmed. He discovered the Manta Ray had no fear and they came right up to him and did somersaults. He was shocked at their size, their mouths opened up to 3 feet wide and made them look like spaceships. The Mantas got so close, that Elliot could touch them, he didn't because they were told not to but just being so close was exhilarating.

45 minutes later Olivia filmed Elliot coming out of the water and back on to the boat with the biggest grin. He was like a little kid, as he said,

"That was the coolest thing I have done so far and we have done some cool things."

**MEETING UP WITH SABRINA AND JEFF**

Morning had come fast and they were all checked out and on their way to the airport. Sabrina had told them not to worry about breakfast she would have some for them on the plane. When they got to the airport Elliot went to return the car while Olivia watched for George who was suppose to meet them. As Olivia looked around she noticed Martha and Frank as the two of them looked directly at her and started to wave and come towards her. Martha said,

"Olivia, where is Elliot?"

Olivia smiled and said as she gestured towards the car rental kiosk,

"He is just returning the car. What time does your flight leave?"

Martha said,

"Well there is an issue. The flight we are booked on had engine trouble and since it is the last one this morning there is no other plane we are delayed until the plane is fixed or another one arrives. What about you?"

Just as she was about to answer George came up behind her and said just as Elliot joined her,

"Good morning you two."

Elliot said as he shook George's hand,

"Good morning George."

He then extended his hand to Frank and then Martha saying,

"Good morning Frank. Martha."

Olivia looked at George and said,

"George these are our new acquaintances Frank and Martha. Martha was just telling us that their flight to Oahu was cancelled due to engine trouble and now they don't know when the next flight will be. Martha is part of the group going to hear Dr. Sabrina Ross speak."

Elliot watched the look on George's face as Martha said,

"My whole company will be there and if I don't show up I could lose my job as it is being considered a paid work day and this was not to be considered a vacation. We took a couple of days off and were hoping to get back without incident."

Olivia said,

"Martha is a huge fan of Dr. Ross's, she has all her books and would love to meet her and maybe get them signed."

Frank asked, as Elliot started to smile at the look on George's face,

"Our flight was suppose to be the last flight going to Oahu today. How are you two getting there?"

Elliot said,

"With a good friend."

Martha asked,

"Would your good friend have room for two more. We'll pay we don't expect to travel for free."

George said,

"Give me a minute."

He took out his phone and talked as he walked away. Sabrina was stretching her legs on the airstrip, she was dressed very casually in shorts and sleeveless blouse. She wore her contacts and sunglasses instead of her trademark glasses because she did not want to be recognized. As she stretched her phone rang and looking down at it she saw George's number. She answered it immediately,

"Is everything alright?"

George said,

"Well everything is alright with Elliot and Olivia. But there is an issue because the only flight going to Oahu today had engine trouble and they are waiting for a replacement plane but because the company is so busy it is very likely the passengers will have to wait til tomorrow. Anyway a couple that El and Liv met while on the island are stranded and they are looking for an alternate way of going and want to know if they can hop on with us. Martha is going to hear Dr. Ross speak and is her biggest fan."

Sabrina got his message loud and clear, she knew others were in earshot. She said,

"Well we can give them a lift but we do it undercover. You know what I mean."

George did and said,

"I do. We will be right out."

George went back to the group of 4 and said,

"I spoke to the owner of the plane, Isabel Stone and she said she and her husband Roger have no problem with you two hopping a lift with us."

Olivia looked at Elliot, as they both looked at George as he nodded looking at them while making direct eye contact,

"Let's not keep Ms Stone waiting for us."

They all grabbed their bags and followed George to the plane. Olivia got on first followed by Martha and Frank, with Elliot and George putting the luggage away before joining them. Olivia introduced everyone,

"Frank and Martha these are our good friends, George you met, his wife Rita and our hosts... Roger and Isabel Stone."

They all shook hands as the stewardess came back and said,

"We are ready for take off Mr. Stone. We need everyone to buckle up and get ready for takeoff."

Martha looked around the plain but very comfortable refurbished DC 9. After the plane was in the air, Jeff asked Elliot,

"So did you two get everything done you planned on?"

Elliot nodded his head,

"Yes we did and it was beautifully fantastic."

Olivia was looking at Jeff who was in his early 50s like Sabrina. He was in great physical shape and very well tanned, she could tell he really took great care of himself. She watched as he held Sabrina's hand as they all chatted. Sabrina took her sunglasses off after the flight took off and Olivia could not believe how different she looked. Even Martha for being her biggest fan could not tell it was her. Once they were on course and the seatbelt light went off, Anna came out with breakfast for all of them. They all ate and chatted. Martha said,

"Mr. Stone Thank you so much for giving us a lift. I need to meet up with my bosses before going to the company mandated conference slash seminar with Dr. Sabrina Ross."

Jeff asked,

"George said you are a big fan of the Doctor's work."

Olivia noticed Sabrina pinch the inside of his leg. But that did not stop him as Martha said,

"Actually I am a huge fan, I have all her books and am reading her latest which I have with me and would love to get signed. But I know she is a busy lady and so I am not expecting it to happen. Have you met her?"

Jeff nodded,

"She and I dated in high school."

This caught Elliot's attention as he finished this eggs and bacon and put the empty plate down. Martha said,

"Really. You honestly dated her."

Jeff nodded,

"She and I dated for 5 years from Grade 10 to our 3rd year in college."

Martha asked looking at Sabrina/Isabel,

"No disrespect Ms Stone, but you did not marry her Mr Stone. How come?"

Olivia could tell Jeff was really enjoying this charade and Sabrina looked like she just wanted to parachute out of the plane. Liv looked at Elliot who was totally enjoying Sabrina's discomfort as he watched. Jeff said,

"Well she was studying to be a shrink and when she was doing her residency the hours were longer than I anticipated and I hardly ever saw her. I finished school and ended up working overseas and when I came back she was a different lady and she had started working for the FBI in their BAU unit and the rest as they say is history. Although I think now it would be fun to be married to her considering she is now famous and back in our school days she was very shy and humble."

Martha said,

"Really? What do you mean? She does so much public speaking."  
Jeff said to Ms Stone,

"Babe I hope you are okay with my rehashing the past."

Ms Stone looked at him and said,

"Well dear its okay because I know you know it works both ways."

Olivia started to laugh as she could see he was totally enjoying himself. He smiled and gave her a kiss on the cheek, and continued,

"When we were in high school she was part of the drama club for the easy credit, it was also where we found out she could sing like an angel. So the drama teacher wanted her to play the female lead in the musicals while she just wanted to be an extra because she did not like having the focus on her. I just think it would be interesting to know what happened over the years that got her over that shyness."

Ms Stone asked,

"Martha, I am curious, why are you such a big fan?"

Martha said,

"Because 15 years ago, I was in a convenience store paying for my gas when a masked man came in and proceeded to rob the store. He then shot the clerk, myself and one other man. The clerk and the other man died and for some reason despite my being shot point blank in the stomach I did not die. But I had a really hard time afterwards with flash backs, head aches and I could not leave my house. Frank came home one day with a copy of Dr. Ross's first book on PTSD, I read it and it was the start I needed to change my life. I have read all her books to date and I get something out of each one. I don't know where I would be if I had read her first book, so that is why I am a huge fan."

Elliot said,

"I had a incident happen to me when I was a New York City Detective, I was put in a position of having to kill a 16 year old girl who was a victim in my last case with Olivia. I went to our squad's shrink who put me in touch with Dr. Ross. I had severe PTSD and I ended up in her Clinic as an inpatient for 12 months and I dealt only with her, she was semi retired from active practice but took me on as a patient. I have gotten to know her pretty well. Let me see what I can do about you meeting her."

Martha was so pleased and said,

"We are staying at Waikiki Towers, here is my cellphone number just let me know..."

Elliot took it looking at Sabrina and nodded.


	21. On the Ground

Once the plane landed, Martha and Frank shook hands, again, with everyone and thanked them. They all got off of Sabrina's jet and loaded into a waiting van with a driver and headed to the Waikiki Towers where they dropped Martha and Frank off amidst a huge crowd of people. Olivia and Elliot went to get out as George grabbed them and shook his head. They then dropped off George and Rita who were staying with their kids and the other 4 went to an apartment 2 blocks from the hotel. Elliot said as the van pulled into the parking garage,

"I thought we were staying at the towers also?"

Sabrina said,

"That was the original plan, but Stan our driver who is also my security guy said people were camping out waiting for me so he arranged a two bedroom sublet."

**THREE HOURS LATER**

Elliot stretched, as he looked down and saw Olivia laying on his bare chest where his shirt was open, and felt the skin on his arm pull. He watched her stretch as she looked up and then at his arm where the bag was hooked up, he asked looking a little scared,

"What happened? Where are we?"

She said as she watched him try to make sense of everything,

"We were driving to the apartment all chatting and you passed out. Sabrina checked you and discovered you were dehydrated. You didn't feel it coming on?"

Elliot shook his head he as he looked around and realized he was in the hospital,

"I was a little sore and tired but felt fine."

There was a light knock on the door, Olivia said,

"Come in."

Sabrina and Jeff came in and looked relieved to see him awake. The ER doctor came in and said as she checked his blood pressure and did a skin test for hydration to see if she could take out the saline bag,

"Welcome back Mr. Stabler. I am Dr. Lee. How do you feel?"

He said,

"I don't know if I am hydrated enough but I have to use the washroom something fierce."

Olivia chuckled as she got up and let him move. Dr. Lee said,

"Move slow, you might be a little lightheaded."

He got up and was a little woozy, Olivia helped him get up and he headed to the washroom leaving the door open as they stayed out but close to give him his privacy. Sabrina had made Olivia drink a few glasses of water while Elliot slept, at the same time Jeff went out got them a few bottles of Gatorade.

As Elliot came out of the washroom, Sabrina said,

"You gave us quite a scare when you passed out."

Jeff handed him a bottle of Gatorade as Dr. Lee said,

"You need to drink as much as you can. I have to say usually first timers to the islands underestimate the heat here and are dehydrated within the first day or two or have heat stroke within the first week, but you two have done fantastic to be 3 weeks in and have this happen."

Elliot nodded. Olivia said,

"You and I have not stopped since we got here. We have been in the water and sun every single day since we got here and although we thought we were being good about hydration we obviously weren't."

Jeff said,

"I remember the first time we came here, I am a big coffee drinker, and I got so badly dehydrated that I passed out in the sun and Sabrina found me lying in the sand on the verge of heatstroke. It took a few hours and an overnighter in the hospital for me to feel even half way normal."

Elliot drank the Gatorade and ran to the bathroom again. Sabrina and Olivia laughed. Dr. Lee said,

"Okay time to disconnect the bag."

Elliot came out and said,

"Wow I don't ever remember having to go to the washroom so much or urgently."

Dr. Lee said,

"That is a good sign. Sit down. I will remove the intravenous line. I don't want you getting over hydrated because that is as bad as being dehydrated."

Olivia sat beside him with her arms around his waist and said,

"I think tonight we should stay in and just rest and sleep."

Jeff said,

"We can order in."

Elliot shook his head and said,

"Listen this was unexpected and I feel fine now. We can go out, it is now cooler out and the sun will be going down soon enough besides I wont be exerting myself."

Jeff said,

"I agree with Elliot. Besides Bri you are with us and 911 is 3 numbers away if we need them."

Elliot laughed,

"Besides I'm hungry lets go eat."

Olivia shook her head and grabbed another bottle of Gatorade for them to split if needed. They all looked at Dr. Lee, she shook her head as she handed him his release papers along with a pen and said,

"I have a feeling that even if I said I wanted you to spent the night here, I would be wasting my time. Sign on the dotted line and you can get out of here."

Elliott nodded and signed.

The 4 of them headed out to The Shore Bird Restaurant and Beach Bar where they would be able to cook their own meat and the restaurant would prepare everything else buffet style. Their table was right beside the rail facing the beach, after they were seated Jeff ordered wine. The waitress came back with their bottle and poured each of them a glass. Once she had left the table Jeff lifted his glass and said,

"I want to make a toast."

They all held up their glasses and Jeff said,

"To Olivia and Elliot congratulations on your engagement and here is to a long and continued partnership."

They tapped glasses and drank. Elliot leaned over and kissed Olivia. Elliot said,

"Thank you."

Olivia nodded,

"We appreciate it."

Elliot sat across from Jeff and Olivia across from Sabrina. The ladies sat on the rail side of the deck they ordered their appetizers first, the restaurant was full and the buzz was so lively that the place had an infectious atmosphere. They chatted as they waited for their appetizers.

Olivia said as she dipped a shrimp into the cocktail sauce,

"Seeing this seafood reminds me I got El to try sushi and I got it on video for his kids."

Sabrina was mixing her seafood salad when she said,

"Finally, and how was it Elliot?"

He shrugged,

"Not as bad as I thought it would be although I will not be making it part of my regular diet. But on the up size the zip lining on Maui was amazing."

Olivia said laughing,

"I didn't realize you tasted it considering how fast you chewed and swallowed it. As for the zip-lining I also loved it."

Jeff smirked and nodded as he said swallowing his calamari,

"We have done it and it is truly amazing. I heard there is a local legend about that line that says anyone who is truly openhearted can experience its mystic properties."

Olivia asked,

"What do you mean?"

Jeff said,

"I have heard of people coming off that ride changed, some people have been reported to come off it with a new meaning for their lives. One lady said her past life flashed before her eyes in the trees and then as she passed over the middle of them she saw her current life, and then as she passed over the last part she saw what her life was meant to be. She got off the ride with a peace she had never felt before and ended up following the vision. She divorced her husband and married the man of her dreams who treated her like a queen. They say she did great things as the vision predicted and died at the ripe age of 97 making love to her husband. The family found them together wrapped in each others arms nude and dead, the ME said the husband died a 1/2 hr after she did."

Sabrina looked at Olivia who was looking at Elliot. She asked,

"Olivia did you have that experience?"

She shook her head as Elliot said,

"I did."

Sabrina asked,

"And are you where you are meant to be according to what you saw?"

Elliot nodded,

"Yes, with a few tweaks."

Sabrina looked at him and asked,

"Any tweaks you want to share?"  
Elliot smiled and shook his head,

"Not at the moment, _Doc_."

Jeff chuckled at how Elliot emphasized the word Doc and then asked,

"Did you two try the kite flying ?"

They both nodded, Elliot said as he bit into his calamari,

"It was fun. 40 foot wing span that pulled me 20 feet into the air for 30 seconds. What a rush."

Olivia added,

"I only had a 23 foot wing span and I was nervous at first but once the wind grabs hold and takes you up, it is the coolest thing. The one thing that amazes me is that everyone who is native to the island go barefoot most of the time."

Sabrina nodded,

"That is the one thing that appeals to me about the island, we are always so buttoned up in the city there is a certain standard that we are expected to uphold, kind of like the country song by Kenny Chesney, 'no shoes, no shirt, no service'. Here it is so laid back with the Native Hawaiians it just feels natural to us. There are certain times, like here in the restaurant, where covered shoes are mandatory but for the most part it is sandals and barefoot."

Once they were done their appetizers the waitress took their meal order, while they waited Sabrina asked,

"So has Hawaii been everything you both thought it would be?"

Olivia nodded as she said,

"I've loved it so far."

She looked at Elliot who nodded as she continued,

"I didn't realize how much I needed this. It has been amazing. We are going to have trouble going back to New York and the impending snow. Even though I love it."

Jeff said,

"Sabrina and I have travelled the world at least a couple of times so far and although our careers have kept us outside of Hawaii we still think of this as our primary home."

Sabrina nodded,

"The tranquillity and peace this place gives us is amazing, it is our place to recharge. I can see you both understand that now after a couple of weeks."

Elliot said,

"Since the marines I have done very little travelling. Having a wife and kids so young did not leave a lot of money for travelling. Although the Justice Department sent me to Prague for a case once, and what I saw of it it was beautiful."

Jeff said,

"I work there often and they have very different laws than we are used to. But it is a very beautiful country to visit."

Elliot said,

"Since you work all over so much how do you set down roots where you work?"

Jeff said,

"I don't. My company has apartments we live in that they pay for in the different places. So I basically live out of a suitcase. So when Bri wanted to buy a house in New York because she is stationed there with the FBI I jumped at it."

Olivia asked,

"Now I have a question about the Stones and the plane this morning."

Sabrina started to laugh, a very hearty laugh causing her tears to water, as Elliot looked at her surprised he had never seen this side. She said,

"When the people around me hear the phrase huge fan they go into protective mode. Many are really nice and just want to thank me for something one of my books has done for them but others are more intrusive. Let me prefix this by saying, working with the Feds I did alot of undercover work and Ms Stone was my alias. One day I had just finished my work out at Quantico, which is where my office was, and I was taking a shower, one of my bosses came in and did not recognize me without my specs. While she was standing there I put them on and she was taken aback and said, 'wow most people don't look so different.', after I got dressed I went into a meeting with her and my team and they needed someone to go in undercover. My boss suggested me, my team lead questioned it saying that I was the shrink of the group and usually stayed in the office. She looked at me and asked, 'do you own contacts?' I nodded because I do. She then asked, 'do you have here?' again I nodded. She then asked me to pop them in I went back to my locker and did that, and re entered the meeting. The room went silent as our tactical guy looked at me he said, 'no freaking way.' Our director said, 'it seems we have uncovered a secret advantage.' That day our tactical guy took me aside and said, 'I need to make sure you can take care of yourself.' and he trained me in combat like crazy. I met Elliot the first time years ago during one of those training sessions, and that is where Ms Stone was born."

Elliot said,

"Our squad had John Munch, he wore glasses and did a little undercover work for us."

Sabrina said,

"Ours were always different, sometimes we were embedded and the kind of guys we dealt with took every advantage so if I had gone in looking like my jacket cover, they could have easily taken my sight as an advantage to them. The contacts made me safer then and still do."

Olivia looked at Jeff,

"You must have one heck of a bruise..."

He laughed,

"The bruise was well worth the fun I had of watching my best selling author shrink here squirm. Besides if the tables had been turned she would have done the same thing."

Sabrina laughed and nodded. Olivia asked,

"With such busy and crazy lives how do you find time to be together? I mean how has your marriage worked for so long with these obstacles?"

Sabrina said,

"We knew going into this relationship what we were up against and we made it work."

Jeff asked,

"Olivia are you worried about that with you two?"

Olivia shrugged,

"I wonder. You know Elliot's marriage didn't work because of his job, and now his job wont be a problem but mine might..."

Elliot shook his head,

"No it wont. The difference with us is that I know what your hours are and I'm not a needy person. I also know that some cases need more time than others and that you are not working to stay away from me you are working because you are helping someone through the worst 15 minutes of their lives. Kathy never understood that, it was a big part of my life and she was not privy to it. She once asked me how someone's worst 15 minutes could turn into her worst days sometimes weeks. I couldn't go home and talk to her about my day, I tried once and she got freaked out. That will never be a problem for us."

Olivia asked,

"I might be stepping out of bounds but do you two have kids?"

Sabrina looked at Jeff as he said,

"I got this one. Actually, I had an accident when I was sixteen that caused an injury that left me unable to have kids and until then I had always wanted kids. When I met Bri she asked about my feelings towards having kids and once I explained she looked relieved..."

Sabrina said,

"I like other people's kids not my own. I personally do not have that maternal instinct that other women possess. So when I heard about Jeff's situation I was relieved. Besides if we really had wanted kids we could have adopted it would not have been a deal breaker. But our lives are so full and busy that we never missed that part of life. Besides George and Rita have 6 kids that we have seen from birth til now and they consider us their adopted aunt and uncle. So we have the best of all worlds revolving around us. Are you two planning on having any of your own?"

Elliot shook his head,

"No not at this point. For me it is wide open, but it is Liv's decision. If she told me tomorrow she wanted a baby we would be having one..."

Liv said,

"Besides El already has five and I was there for Eli's birth so I feel like an aunt to him and I am close to Kathleen. And my brother Simon has a step daughter who I have gotten to know over the last couple of years and we are close so I think we will be fine."

The waitress came with their meats and let them know their sides were served buffet style and were unlimited. Jeff took his and Sabrina's meat and headed to the grill, Elliot followed with his and Olivia's giving the ladies time to talk and the guys.

Sabrina watched Elliot walk away and asked,

"Is he really as alright as he looks? And I don't mean from the dehydration because he is drinking like there is going to be a water shortage so I know he is fine that way."

Olivia nodded,

"Yes. Ever since the hypnosis he is that guy I first saw after his 3 year hiatus."

Sabrina nodded,

"Good and you?"

Olivia said,

"I am good. But Elliot makes me better."

Sabrina said,

"I have always thought you two fit together really well since the day I met you. I do have to say George and Rita are quite smitten with you two, we don't lend or rent our place to too many people but you two are the first ones they have ever bragged about. All Jeff and I heard was Liv this and El that, it was quite cute because we have never seen them so smitten."

Olivia laughed,

"They are such a cool couple. Rita is quite the cougar under that facade from the way she looks at Elliot, and I noticed she looks the same way at Jeff."

Sabrina started to laugh,

"I remember the first time we were together at the island house and Jeff stripped down to his swimsuit and went for a swim, Rita came over as he was getting out of the pool and she gave him the once over more than once, and said 'oh my'. He just laughed."

Olivia said,

"For an older gentleman George takes good care of himself."

Sabrina nodded,

"He has a work out regimen that he does everyday. He also works out with Jeff when he is down."

Jeff and Elliot cooked the meat, Elliot asked,

"So did you always want to travel for work or did it just happen?"

Jeff nodded and said as he sprinkled spices on the steaks he was cooking,

"I did. I had a rough childhood my father was abusive and an alcoholic so I wanted to get as far away from him as I could. I didn't want the memories to taint my future."

Jeff asked,

"Did you always want to be a cop?"

Elliot shook his head,

"No it was my father's profession. I wanted to be an astronaut. I joined the marines with the help of Colonel Dick Finley who was my mentor until he committed murder a few years ago, I named my oldest son after him, I joined the marines to be able to get into flight school and become an astronaut. But life had other plans, I married just before my 18th birthday because I got my wife pregnant at a kegger when we were 17. So being a good Catholic I did the right thing, being a cop was the easiest progression and I find it ironic that the one job I did to keep my family from going hungry was the same job that killed my marriage. But look at my life now I am in the perfect relationship, it is so easy with no demands. Liv is not a needy person, she is a strong independent beautiful lady."

Jeff nodded,

"Wow, so you know Dick Finley, as they kids say, that is way cool."

They both laughed. Jeff said,

"I thought being married to a shrink would be a constant look into therapy. But it has been amazing because like Olivia she does not nag. Our relationship is the easiest part of my life."

Elliot nodded and asked,

"The answers you gave about Sabrina on the plane were they real life true or undercover true?"

Jeff laughed,

"Real life true. We married when we were in college."

Elliot nodded,

"So are you a sports fan?"

Jeff nodded,

"I am a huge sports fan, I love basketball, football, baseball and even hockey. You?"

Elliot said as he turned the steaks to get the lines in a criss cross,

"Same. Knicks, Jets, Yankees and Rangers. Liv is not into sports so I go with my sons or one of my friends. You know, sometime, you and I should take in a game."

Jeff nodded,

"I agree. Sabrina does not do sports and I don't do Operas."

After eating, they were having coffee and Olivia noticed that a crowd was gathering 2 feet from the rail, the waitress came by and Jeff stopped her,

"Cindy what is going on outside here?"

Cindy smiled,

"Fire jamming will be starting."

Olivia looked puzzled,

"What is Fire jamming?"

Cindy said,

"Fire jamming is a group of dancers who perform and practice different moves with their fire wands. It is open to the public. Can I warm up your coffee while you watch?"

Elliot said,

"I'll take more coffee."

He saw Olivia looking at him and he clarified,

"I need it to balance out my over abundance of water."

They all chuckled as Cindy poured more into all their cups. They watched the performers dance and twirl their fire wands as the crowd cheered. One of the performers stood in the middle of the performance area and asked,

"Do any of you watching want to try this?"

No one stepped forward, so Sabrina got up with Olivia and they both said at the same time,

"I will."

Jeff and Elliot looked at them as if they were nuts, but they got up and let the girls pass as they watched stunned. The women entered the performance area and were shown how to do the dance and spin and twirl the wands. Olivia dropped it but the grass was so green and healthy that the wand went out without starting a fire. Sabrina didn't do much better but they had fun. Jeff leaned over and said to Elliot,

"Bri likes to try everything once."

Elliot chuckled as he watched Olivia,

"So does Olivia."

Back at the apartment, they said their good nights and headed to their bedrooms.


	22. Oahu Activities

They woke up early and as Elliott started kissing Olivia and running his hands down her bare body he felt her hand stop his as he slid his finger into her warmth. She had never stopped him before and he looked at her questioningly as she said,

"Sorry Sexy but do you hear what I hear?"

He stopped and listened. He heard Sabrina and Jeff quietly in the kitchen. He rolled on his back and sighed realizing the walls were too thin not to be heard and chuckled. They got up, dressed and headed into the kitchen, Jeff turned when he heard them and said,

"Good morning did you two, sleep well?"

Sabrina turned around dressed in her jacket cover look as Elliot called it, as Olivia said,

"Fantastic. How about you two?"

Sabrina nodded and said,

"Amazing."

Jeff said,

"The fridge and cupboards are a little parse they were not expecting visitors and we are not here long enough to buy too much. There is a little cafe by the Waikiki Towers Hotel where Sabrina is doing her seminar, we can have breakfast there."

They both nodded and headed out. The cafe was a one block walk so they left the van at the apartment, once there they ordered fruit cups, coffee, french toast and bacon. Olivia grabbed two bottles of orange juice and 2 bottles of Gatorade to take with them, seeing Elliot pass out scared her and she was not going to take another chance. Sabrina said,

"I found out this morning that I am needed to do one more seminar tomorrow for another business group."

Elliot said,

"No problem. We have a few things we want to do, plus we are doing a Luau tomorrow night with George and Rita and their family."

Jeff nodded,

"Exactly. What do you have planned for tomorrow?"

Olivia said,

"There is a place, Waimaee Falls that teaches hula dancing. I want to learn."

Sabrina added,

"There is also a huge mall here that you might want to check out for local items. Also a farmer's type market where you can get local shirts and touristy stuff by Aloha stadium."

Olivia said,

"I really want to do a couple's spa day."

Sabrina said,

"Actually check with the front desk at the hotel they will be able to set you up."

They finished breakfast and Jeff handed Elliot two keys, one for the van and one for the apartment. They then headed off for their respective days saying they would meet up later at the apartment.

They had to go to the hotel to get their rental vehicle to go to the Plantation so while Elliot got the car, Olivia went in to see about the spa day. She found out the spa had an opening later that afternoon so she took it. She left with her appointment and met Elliot out front of the hotel. She got in the car and said,

"Once we are done with the Plantation we have an appointment at the spa."

Elliot chuckled and said,

"That is good planning. We are going to need it after this maze."

Elliot had rented a compact car as he felt the van was not intimate enough. The car was an automatic so they held hands as he drove them to the Plantation.

Dole Plantation holds the Guinness World Record for the largest maze as it sits on 3 acres of land and houses 2.5 miles of pathways, along with being the biggest it was most likely the hardest maze on the planet.

They got to the ticket booth and were given a stamped ticket with a time on, Olivia asked,

"What is the time for?"

The agent said,

"The time is to let us know when you started, it should take you 45 minutes or so to finish. If you are not out in an hour and a half we go in looking for you. As you go through the maze you will come to checkpoints that have an icon that you need to trace onto the appropriate box on the back of your ticket once you have all the icons you are at the end of the maze. The other card we gave you is the maze itself and finally if you notice behind you we have our leader board, if you finish faster than any other scores on the board you will be added to the list."

They both nodded. Then Olivia asked,

"Do you have any bottles of water? We forgot ours."

The agent handed them two bottles. Elliot put up 4 fingers and said as he handed the agent a ten,

"Two each please."

They entered the maze along with a group of other people. Olivia had her hair tied back in a ponytail and was wearing a baseball style sunhat with sunglasses and a cotton blouse with linen shorts. She and Elliot had both gotten into wearing sandals, even though they were not their normal foot attire. They wanted to stay cool and fit in but they did notice that some of the tourists wore socks with their sandals, they didn't. Elliot was wearing linen shorts and a silk shirt with the first 3 buttons open, he was also wearing a baseball cap with sunglasses.

They got through the maze with the icons in 43 minutes. They ended up having a half a bottle left each. Elliot was carrying a small backpack to carry sunscreen, the orange juice, Gatorade, and water. They had put the empty bottles in the pack and once out of the maze they put the empty bottles into the recycling bins and then headed to the washroom.

Afterwards they headed back to the apartment and had time to take a shower before going to the spa, they showered together and made love which was now becoming a regular thing for them. Liv put on a sundress and Elliot put on a clean short sleeved shirt and cargo shorts. They walked hand in hand the two blocks down to the spa where, for such an easy to find place, it was very private. The receptionist Judy, said,

"Aloha. Welcome."

Elliot said,

"Aloha. How are you?"

Judy said,

"Very well. Are you two ready for a relaxing few hours?"

Olivia had booked them from 2:00 to 8:00. The spa was open 24 hours a day. They were led to a private room in the back by Sara, she gave them robes and flip flops and showed them where to

change, Sara said,

"For the massage take everything off and put these robes and flops on, when you are done you can put your stuff in the lockers here and take the key with you. I will then take you to the massage area."

They changed and then were taken to a couples massage room where there was jasmine burning and two tables with towels. They took of the robes and lay nude on the tables were they felt towels being put over their butts. They put their faces in the holes on the tables, they were close enough together to hold hands which they did. The masseurs came in and introduced themselves. Elliot and Olivia lay there as they felt the deep relaxing feel of the strong hands of their masseurs manipulating their muscles. Elliot started to doze off. Olivia felt her masseur's hands glide over her back and shoulders she felt the tension, she did not even know she had, leaving her body. She, too, started to doze off. Two hours later, they were getting facials along with eyebrow waxing, Olivia watched Elliot get his waxed and was shocked that he was went along with all the primping. He noticed her watching and said,

"I have done this before."

Olivia was surprised,

"Really!"

He said,

"I do have 3 daughters and they practised on me."

She laughed and asked,

"Were you awake or asleep?"

He laughed.

An hour later, they were getting manicures and pedicures. Olivia said,

"This has been the most relaxing day."

Elliot nodded and said,

"I could not agree more."

**THE NEXT DAY...**

After an amazing nights sleep and a filling breakfast, they headed up to Waimea Valley where they would also get some lunch, they found it cheaper to eat out then buy any sort of groceries as things were so expensive.

Elliot said as they drove to the falls,

"This afternoon I thought I would do a little shopping to pick up a little something for the kids."

Olivia sat enjoying the air conditioning,

"Great idea."

She then added,

"Yesterday was something."

Elliot looked at her,

"I tend to agree."

She said,

"This has been so relaxing. I have never enjoyed a vacation this much. I think we should make this a yearly thing. This going away together."

Elliot smiled as he said in agreement,

"I agree. Maybe next time we can go somewhere a passport is needed now that we know we travel well together."

Olivia laughed,

"After all these years did you think we wouldn't?"

Elliot said,

"No I knew we would be more than okay travelling together because we like too many of the same things. Some people would say that is a bad thing but we prove it can be the best thing also."

Olivia leaned back in her seat and took his hand in hers. She said,

"We bring out the best in each other. I always thought that was a cliche. But I watched Sabrina and Jeff last night and they are so in-tune to each that they almost speak without words."

Elliot laughed,

"I noticed that also. You know in all the years I was married to Kathy I could only tell when she was mad I could never read her otherwise. You I can read."

Olivia looked at him,

"Really. How?"

He said,

"We usually are thinking the same thing so it is fairly easy for me to know what you are thinking."

She said,

"That is why our relationship is so easy."

They pulled into the 2nd parking lot of Waimea Valley. They then walked up to the ticket booth and got tickets. They also went to the Falls before entering the Valley. Inside they had all the touristy things such as a gift shop, snack bar, the botanical gardens and different water animals. They stopped at the snack bar first and got fish tacos and shaved ices. They also grabbed some water and spent the rest of the day taking in the different cultural activities and gardens.

Once they were done, it was 2pm and they headed back to the car and Olivia drove back to the apartment. Elliot started to yawn as he took his baseball cap and glasses off in the air conditioning, Olivia did the same. She said as she looked over at him,

"Do you remember the last time we were this tired?"

He laughed,

"Yes that missing kid case about 4 years into our partnership. We actually snapped at each other but in all fairness, our tired was not a good one. This is."

The ride back to the apartment went fast, once they got back, they checked to see if they were alone and they were they got into the shower together. Elliot said to her as he washed her back,

"I don't ever remember getting this much sun."

Olivia laughed,

"My pasty white city skin has really been soaking up the sun. Hopefully I will stay tanned enough til next summer."

They finished showering and headed to bed. They fell asleep.

**The Luau...**

Three hours later, Olivia woke up at 7:00 pm to the alarm, she was alone. She got up and found Elliot sitting in the livingroom on Skype with his kids. She did not realize that the kids could see her until she heard Eli say,

"Daddy tell Livia I want to say hi to her. She is behind you."

Elliot turned around and waved her over, she took the seat beside him as Eli said,

"Hi Livia.:

She said,

"Hey Eli how are you?"

He said,

"Good. Daddy says you are going to be home soon."

She said,

"Yes we are. We miss you all."

Elliot then said,

"Ok buddy we have to go now."

Eli said,

"Ok daddy. I miss you and I will see you next time we Skype."

Elliot logged out of Skype and closed the computer. Olivia asked,

"Did you sleep at all?"

He nodded,

"For an hour. I woke up and could not sleep so I went shopping with Jeff and when we came back I Skyped Eli. He is actually with Kathleen so I got to see and talk to her too."

Olivia asked,

"How is she?"

Elliot,

"So grown up. They all are."

They finished dressing as they heard the door open. Elliot came out of the bedroom as he buttoned his shirt and Olivia finished strapping her shoes. Jeff and Sabrina were dressed in Linen shorts and light shirts, they both wore joggers. The 4 of them headed down to the garage and George and Rita were there, Jeff said,

"I thought we were meeting at the restaurant."

Rita said,

"We thought this might be easier since we have all the tickets."

Sabrina nodded,

"Great idea."

At the Luau, all the tables were under a huge open tent and there was a boar on a spit and they could see the pit where there was a roasted pig. They joined their table and introductions were made all around when George and Rita introduced all their kids. Rita's daughter, Lily, was sitting between Elliot and Olivia, she said to them,

"You two have really won my parents hearts. They are so impressed with you both."

Elliot blushed,

"They have been amazing to us and we will keep in touch with them after this trip. We consider them friends for life."

She said,

"Since this is your first luau, there is a lot of food choices. This is buffet style in that the table at the front has all the sides and main meat that the staff serves so it is not a free for all. And there is a lot of food, the plates are bigger than the normal dinner plates so you can really fill it."

Olivia asked,

"I hope it is all local."

Lily said,

"It is a mix of local, cultural and mainland food. But the mainland food is very limited because they put some of it on for the kids or bland eaters. What have you been eating since you got here?"

Olivia,

"A lot of fruit and seafood. High protein stuff."

They had a great night at the Luau they all ate a lot and danced a lot. Olivia danced with Elliot and they did the hula dance that they had learnt. Sabrina and Jeff danced and both did the fire jamming. George and Rita watched with pride as their kids all danced and then Elliot asked Rita to dance and she accepted while Olivia asked George and he accepted. When it was time to call it a night, Rita asked Sabrina,

"Are we leaving early tomorrow Dr. Ross?"

She shook her head,

"We will leave around 11am, the plane is having maintenance done. Let's do breakfast first at 9 over at the cafe by the hotel and then go."

George and Rita bid their good nights and the other 4 went to the apartment. Elliot watched as Jeff slide his hand over Sabrina's butt and she slide her hand inside the back of his pants. He chuckled to himself knowing he and Olivia were going to be doing the same thing.

Sabrina and Jeff went to bed as Olivia ran the shower, she and Elliot stripped and got in. She said,

"What a great night."

Elliot let the water run over his head as Olivia put shampoo in her hands and as she rubbed her hands together he said,

"I agree. I had a great time."

He turned around and Olivia ran her hands over his head and lathered the shampoo into his short hair, when she was done he rinsed it out and she soaked her hair while he poured shampoo into his hands and after rubbing his hands together he shampooed her hair once it was lathered she took a hair brush and brushed the shampoo through to get rid of all the tangles and any product residue. She let it sit in her hair while she soaped up her body. She enjoyed this level of intimacy they had, she turned around and he soaped her back and butt sliding his hand deep inside her butt crack and when she turned to rinse off the soap and the shampoo he soaped his chest and his genitals. She loved watching him soap himself up as much as he loved watching her, she realized he took a real pleasure in it. He then turned around and she soaped up his back and butt running her hand deep and slowly between his butt cheeks causing him to gasp and she knew he was stroking himself. She watched as he bend his head back and his orgasm caused his body to shake. He had always brought up his Catholic beliefs but many of the things he did, like the way he touched himself, made her question how strong his belief was.

He watched her watching him and said,

"Sabrina got me into doing this. Because she wanted me to experiment since I used to be only a missionary type of guy. Since therapy I have become much more open minded and I surprise myself at the things I do like."

Olivia knew he was very experimental because he tried so many things with her, they had an amazing sex life. They did things to each other that she had only read about.

They got back to Kauai and spend the last few days of their vacation resting, swimming, making love and visiting with Jeff and Sabrina. Jeff said to Elliot,

"Before you leave these islands you need to come Marlin fishing with George and I."

Elliot had heard all about first time Marlin fishermen, that if he got a Marlin he was going to be swimming with the fish. He was game either way. He said,

"I would love to go Marlin fishing with you two."

Rita said,

"I will pack you fellows lunch and a lot of fluids."

Sabrina and Olivia laughed as Elliot made a face because he knew that since his dehydration trip to the ER, fluids were never far away.

While the guys were fishing, the ladies relaxed and visited on the deck by the pool.


	23. Telling The Kids

Once Olivia and Elliot landed at JFK, Maureen and Eli met them and drove them back to Olivia's apartment. Once there Eli was spending the night as Elliot still had a few days off before he had to go back to class, Olivia only had a couple of days before heading back to the precinct so she and Elliot were going to take Eli to his first afternoon Broadway show. Once Olivia went back to work Elliot was going to spend some quality father/son time with his youngest. But first things first, Elliot had asked all his kids to come over their first night back, when they got to Olivia's the rest of his kids were just arriving there. He hugged them all as Olivia spoke to each of them as they entered the building, once inside Elizabeth said,

"I don't remember the last time I saw you looking this tanned and relaxed Dad..."

Elliot smiled,

"Me neither. Who wants pizza?"

Kathleen looked at him, as he said,

"No worries Kathleen, you are not the only one who loves vegetarian pizza. Olivia does too."

Elliot ordered the pizza and beverages. Once that was done he said,

"Now even though I Skyped with all of you during the month I still missed you guys and gals. One of the reasons I wanted you all to come over tonight was because we have some news to share with you all and I wanted to do this in person."

He looked at Olivia and then at each of his kids, Richard said,

"I think we know where this is going..."

Maureen said,

"It had better be going where we think, because two grown adults can't spend 6 weeks in Paradise and be Platonic, as a man I greatly admire said to me not that long ago."

Elliot nodded and chuckled as he remembered telling her the same thing when she and her boyfriend took a trip to the Bahamas. Of all his kids, Maureen was most like him, Kathy had told him that Eli was properly named as he was starting to show some of his father's traits.

Elliot looked at Olivia and they went to stand together and showed a united front, as Elliot said,

"I am not big on ceremony and formality but while we were in Hawaii I asked Olivia to marry me..."

Elizabeth said to Olivia,

"Did you make him work for it?"

Of all of his kids, Elizabeth was the quietest, she was his world observer she missed nothing but said very little, so when she said something people listened. This made him chuckle. Olivia smiled and said,

"He caught me so of guard that i did not have time to coy with him."

Kathleen and Maureen were looking for the ring when Kathleen asked,

"You did say yes? Right?"

Olivia let go of Elliot's hand and showed them the ring. Richard congratulated them both with a handshake and the girls ohed and ahed over the ring and they all hugged. They wanted to know how he did it, what the setting was and were disappointed yet not surprised to find out their father was not romantic he was straight forward. Olivia was not an overly romantic woman herself but she liked Elliot's straightforwardness because she never had to guess.

Maureen asked,

"Have you set a date?"

Olivia said,

"Not yet. But we do know it will be a small ceremony and I would like you 3 girls to stand with me. I would like Kathleen to be my maid of honor as we have quite the history." As she said this she looked at Maureen who nodded and said,

"I totally agree."

Kathleen said,

"Absolutely, I would love to be your maid of honour, just promise me no gaudy dress."

Olivia laughed,

"I promise. We want a small ceremony but a nice one. We haven't worked it all out yet."

As for Elliot he said to Richard,

"Richard I would like you to be my best man."

Richard whose relationship was in a very different but good place since Shane's death, he knew his father saw him as a man and not that little boy Dickie. After Shane's death Elliot had ruined his relationship with Richard and had to work very hard to repair it, Richard did not make it easy for him. But in repairing their relationship Elliot talked to Richard very openly and honestly about his own life and what he wanted for him. Richard said,

"I would be honoured to stand for you at your wedding. But one question..."

Elliot looked at him funny and nodded. Richard continued,

"This wedding... you aren't marrying Olivia because you have to are you?"

The shocked, surprised look on Elliot's face which was causing it to turn red made everyone of them laugh, Elliot said,

"No. I want to marry Olivia I don't have."

Richard trying to keep a straight face said,

"It's not like it has never happened before."

Olivia was laughing so hard she had tears in her eyes. She shook her head as the buzzer downstairs went off signalling the food had arrived. She said,

"We have already discussed babies and at my age and where we are in life we decided we would leave the baby making to you the younger generation. We will settle for grandchildren."

Eli piped up,

"I'm to young to have grandchildren."

They all laughed as Elliot tossled his youngest hair.

Elliot paid for the food as Olivia got plates and cutlery. They all dug in. Kathleen asked,

"Are you two going to be living here after the wedding?"

Elliot looked at Olivia and then back at Kathleen,

"Well I have been thinking about that and I think we should look at getting a place that is bigger with at least two bedrooms and a place we can call ours not mine or hers. I am thinking we should buy an apartment so we can make it our own, instead of renting."

Olivia looked at him and nodded,

"I agree. I want you all to feel comfortable coming by. If you are out partying and need a bed so there is no driving we want to have one. Also we need a place for Eli to call his own when he comes for weekends. So probably a 3 bedroom place."

Maureen said,

"I was always grateful I was not young when you and mom divorced because it would have been hard going from place to place. At least Eli will not know any different."

The other 3 nodded.

Olivia said,

"Our marriage won't change anything..."

Elizabeth interrupted,

"Except for your last name."

Elliot said shaking his head,

"We haven't talked about it. But I don't expect Olivia to take my last name because of our jobs. Just because I teach at the academy doesn't mean I wont get called up for a case with the FBI and Liv is still going to be working at the 16th so the fewer professional people who know we are married the better. It makes it safer for all of us. Less chance of the perps finding out also."

Olivia hadn't even thought about the implications of her taking his last name but it would be something they would have to discuss. Richard asked,

"Can we tell our friends?"

Elliot nodded,

"Yes. There is no problem with that. You can tell your mom if you want but don't tell your Grandmother, we are taking her to lunch and will tell her then. She is always getting on me about not telling her things myself so I will do that."

Maureen said,

"I am glad you and Grandma B reconnected again. She is really happy about it. She told us you take her for lunch at least twice a month."

Elliot shook his head,

"And people thought I was a good detective."

Olivia shook her head,

"No one thought that, they all knew you were an amazing detective."

Maureen said,

"I remember the time dad told me to stay in the car while we stopped at a fire so he could help and I didn't listen. I saw what he saw everyday and although I had nightmares for a while I finally understood why he never talked about work and why he worried about us so much. You guys were called into the worst 15 minutes of peoples lives and had to figure out what went wrong."

Kathleen, Elizabeth and Richard nodded, Elizabeth said,

"Mom always explained it was your job that was the problem never you."

Elliot said,

"You kids need to know your mom will always have a special place in my heart because she gave me you 5. But as for being husband and wife, we changed over the years and we both want something different. At least now your mom is happy and not alone so much and I am right where I am suppose to. Besides you 5 deserve happy parents even if we aren't together."

Maureen said,

"I agree. That is why I have waited so long to get married. I have a lot of things I want to do and having kids is not one of them right now. Maybe down the road I will see later..."

Kathleen said,

"I also agree. But for me I want that happy ever after and I am willing to wait for it. Like you said Dad that day in the back yard kicking soccer balls. Protect it with my life. I know what you meant and I didn't protect that, but I am protecting my heart."

Olivia looked at him and said,

"You actually said that, Protect it with your life?"

Before he could answer, Kathleen said,

"Yes he did."

They all laughed. Elliot stepped in,

"In all fairness you were the one who told me to tell her that..."

Olivia shook her head and then said,

"I didn't mean in those words but in that gist. The other thing is, you all have a mother who I will never even attempt to replace or try to equal. But I do want to be your friend and if there is anything at all I can do for any of you please ask."

Richard said,

"We have known since you and dad were partners that you had our back and would do anything for us. For me it was mostly when Shane died and I was so angry because dad didn't seem to care that my friend was missing because he only saw Shane as a drug addict. You tried to help as much as I would let you."

Kathleen said,

"I think I have benefited most from your help, first with calming dad down after my DUI but the most help was when I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder and Grandma B would not talk to Dad, so mom called you and you went and talked to her and here I am. That talk with Grandma B in the jail cell that night will always stay with me."

Olivia said,

"You are all welcome. I will tell you Kathleen meeting your Grandmother was a huge deal for me because your father here never told me about her. I always thought she was dead. But when your mom told me she wasn't and I met her she showed me pictures of your dad as a little boy Eli's age..."

Maureen laughed,

"Let me guess, dressed as a carrot?"

Olivia looked at Elliot as he watched on silently as his old life and new one blended together effortlessly. Olivia nodded,

"I learnt more about him in a one hour visit than I had for 10 years at that time. Mind you I know a lot more now..."

Elizabeth interrupted,

"And you are not running for the hills as fast as you can?"

Elliot laughed,

"My kids have never been shy to call an ace an ace."

Kathleen,

"We are only following what we were taught."

They all laughed...


	24. Back At The Precinct

Olivia woke up to the smell of pancake, bacon and coffee and to the sound of Eli laughing. She got up and made her way to the kitchen, she stood back and silently watched as Elliot showed Eli how to flip pancakes. Elliot saw her watching in the window of the cupboard over the stove, he said,

"I hope we didn't wake you. But I also hope you are hungry."

Eli turned to look at her fast and then back at the fry pan,

"We are making buttermilk pancakes. Buttermilk is gross by itself but yummy in pancakes."

Olivia laughed and said,

"Eli I have to agree with you. I don't like buttermilk alone either."

They took the last of the pancakes out of the frying pan and put them on the table. Elliot poured coffee for himself and Olivia, he got Eli some chocolate milk and each of them a glass of juice. Eli put some strawberries on the table and the syrup while Elliot went back for the pancakes and bacon. Eli said,

"Sit down Livia."

She laughed. She watched the two of them as if she was dreaming. The sight made her smile. All she ever wanted was to be a part of a family and now she had that. Yes she had Simon but that was not the same. Elliot sat beside her and leaned over and kissed her,

"Good morning. Beautiful."

She looked at Eli as he made faces watching them kiss. Elliot noticed and asked,

"What is that face for?'

He said as he speared a pancake,

"It is the face I make when mom or Maureen puts on those films where they do all that yucky kissing. When you and Livia kiss my face just happens."

Both adults could not help but laugh, as they filled their plates and ate.

**BACK AT THE PRECINCT...**

Elliot and Eli dropped Olivia off at the Precinct as they were going to the Zoo. There was a new exhibit there that Eli wanted to see, so they were making a day of it with lunch out. Olivia walked into the squadroom and was met with welcome back cupcakes. Munch, Fin, Rollins and Amarro were all there, Cragen came out of his office and said,

"Welcome back Liv. From that tan I would say you had a great vacation."

She smiled,

"Yes I did. It was beautiful. We got to all five islands and we did a Luau with a full roasted pig. We had a great time."

She walked over to the coffee machine to grab a coffee and Munch noticed the sparkle on her finger and went over to her and grabbing her left hand he said,

"Well Detective Benson that is some pretty bling on your left finger there. Anyone special give you that?"

She turned to look at him as he looked at her over his glasses. She said,

"Well I guess this as good a time as any..."

She turned around and showed off her engagement ring. The whole place were surprised yet really pleased, Fin looked at it up-close and said,

"Stabler spared no expense...it is Stabler right?"

Olivia started to laugh,

"Yes it is Stabler."

Rollins asked,

"Was it romantic when he asked you?"

Olivia continued to chuckle,

"If you mean did he get down on one knee...yes he did. He caught me totally by surprise. I was not expecting it."

Cragen asked,

"Did you tell Elliot's kids?"

Olivia nodded,

"Yes the other night when we got back from Hawaii. They are thrilled."

Amarro asked,

"So when is the big day?"  
Olivia said,

"We haven't set a date yet. But when we do it will be a small wedding but you are all invited."

Just as she said that Melinda and Casey walked into the squadroom. Melinda said as Olivia held up her left hand to show them the ring,

"Well it is about time. Congratulations. Was the proposal romantic?"  
Casey said,

"I don't see Elliot as the romantic type. I see him more as the caveman type."

Fin and Munch laughed. Olivia said,

"We will do lunch and I will tell you all about it."

Melinda said,

"You got a great tan though."

She said,

"We both did."

Casey asked,

"You two do any nude tanning?"

Cragen said trying to get past the too much information portion of the conversation as Olivia looked at Casey and nodded to her question,

"Any news on the medical or legal front for this rape case we are working on?"

Olivia nodded and then smiled at the Captain. Melinda and Casey gave their reports and Olivia was filled in on the current case.

Elliot and Eli checked out the exhibits at the zoo, he then wanted to go to Grey Poupon's for a hot dog. Elliot took him, they ordered their favourite hot dogs. After eating and listening to Eli chatter all about the animals they had seen, Elliot took Eli to the public washroom and got him cleaned up and then they took him to the Minskoff Theatre for the 2pm showing of the Lion King. Eli loved the video so Elliot wanted to expose him to the live show, he just hoped the little guy could sit still but just in case Elliot had gotten aisle seats so if Eli got restless he could take him out without interrupting anyone else.

Two hours later, after the show Elliot was shocked that Eli had gotten up and danced and sang as if he was alone in the aisle throughout the show. At the end of the show Eli yelled 'I love you Simba'. The audience that heard laughed as an usher came up to Elliot and said very quietly as the curtain closed and the lights came on.

"Excuse me sir."

Elliot said,

"Sorry about my little guy. He was just so excited."

The gentleman shook his head,

"No, no, that is why we do matinees. We want to know if he would like to meet the cast. They were all blown away how he knew the whole show. They enjoyed his show as much as he enjoyed theirs."

Elliot called Eli over to his seat so people could get around,

"Eli buddy. Come here please."

Once Eli came over Elliot asked him,

"This gentleman would like to know if you want to meet the actors?"

Eli looked up at the man and asked,

"Can I meet Simba? He is my favourite."

The usher nodded,

"Yes. Come with me."

And he led them down to the front of the stage and into the back. The usher said,

"Pictures are allowed with the actors."

After Eli met Simba and the other actors they took a cast picture with him and gave him a stuffed Simba and told him what a great job he did singing in the aisles.

Elliot reminded Eli to thank them and they headed out. They then went back to Elliot and Olivia's apartment to get Eli's stuff and he was taking him home to Kathy's. Afterwards he was going to meet Olivia for dinner at the cafe by the precinct.


	25. Setting The Date

Elliot showed up at the precinct, and was greeted by Judge Donnelly and Casey. They were looking for Olivia and Nick who were not yet back from getting a statement. Elizabeth Donnelly always had let on that she was a hard ass with Elliot but she defended him always and had helped him out when he needed it, but he had helped her just as much. She said to him,

"So I hear congratulations is in order. You and Benson are finally tying the knot after your 12 year engagement..."

Fin, Munch and Rollins were standing there watching him spar with the Judge. He nodded and said,

"Yes. I took a knee and proposed to her. We just haven't set a date."

Donnelly said,

"What are you waiting for? 12 years isn't long enough?"

Olivia walked in with a perp from both of their pasts. The perp, Mr. Ricket, looked at Elliot and said,

"Well if it isn't the great detective Stabler. Your partner here told me you are retired."

He looked at him and then at Olivia and she said,

"One minute. "

Nick looked at her and said,

"I got this."

Liv said,

"I will be right in."

Ricket said as he was led to the interrogation room,

"Come on Stabler, for old times sake."

She then turned to Elliot and said,

"Ricket somehow managed to get out and he is at it again. Still in the aunt's house."

Elliot asked,

"Did you get him red handed?"

Liv nodded she then kissed him and said,

"We just need to take his statement and then you and I can go for dinner."

And Judge Donnelly said,

"And set a date. I need to free my courtroom so I can perform the ceremony for you."

Casey said,

"Elizabeth we need to be listening in on this interrogation."

Cragen watched Elliot as he watched them leave. Cragen said,

"You can watch if you want Elliot."

Elliot didn't have to be asked twice. He was gone to the window with Casey and the Judge. They both looked at him as Cragen said,

"I okayed him to listen in. Casey as you know Elliot is very familiar with Mr. Ricket here."

In the interrogation room, Ricket said,

"The last time I was in this room Stabler had played with my chair, the heat and the lights. He got that stinky food which I hope gave him heartburn for a few days."

Olivia said,

"But he beat you in the end because you said more than you thought and he is amazing at figuring out the clues and he found you before you could hurt another girl."

Ricket asked,

"Can I have one last go with him since we are both here?"

Olivia said,

"No. He is retired from the NYPD."

Ricket said,

"That is too bad. I really thought a guy with his kind of anger issues would still be here doing the same thing to the same perps."

Ricket looked at Nick and said,

"You, I don't know and don't respect. I like a challenge and you are not it."

Ricket looked at Olivia and said,

"You're not it either. Besides I remember you the last time when you were with Stabler you were different. More in control more confident. I don't see the same confidence in you with Nick here. You still breaking him in. You don't trust him like you did Stabler..."

Fin walked into the viewing area with the folder and Elliot asked,

"What are you trying to get from him?"

Fin looked at Cragen who looked at Casey who in turn looked at Donnelly. She said,

"Teaching at the Academy still makes him NYPD. So let him see the file. El knows Ricket better than the rest of us, maybe he can help."

Cragen said,

"If he thinks he can get Elliot in there we lose credibility with him."

Fin said,

"You all heard Ricket, he has no respect for Olivia or Nick he is going to play with them for hours just to have fun. At least with Elliot he will not play games."

Elliott said,

"I don't know. I don't want to step on toes. But he is toying with them."

Munch entered at this point and said,

"El you have lost 90% of your anger since being in therapy with Sabrina. I don't know if you can connect him anymore because the last time he connected with your anger."

Just then they heard Ricket say,

"You know since Stabler is here I think I want to talk to him instead of you two. Although Benson you can stay here but the choir boy Nick can leave."

Nick looked at him and got mad,

"Like hell I am going to leave. You deal with us or no one."

Ricket looked at the mirrored window and said,

"Stabler I know you are standing behind that window, I know that you didn't just walk away. You couldn't. I will only talk to you."

Nick knew they were being watched but he only thought it would be the Captain. There was a knock on the window and the door opened as Nick and Olivia walked out. They both saw the crowd outside the window, she said,

"Captain we got this."

Cragen said,

"I know you do. But he is going to play you for the whole time he is here til we have to let him go. My advise is to throw him off by giving him Elliot. He can get a read off of him and more clues than we can."

Cragen really missed his dynamite duo of Benson and Stabler, they closed so many cases together, if the truth be told Elliot to this day still had the highest closure rate of any of his detectives no one came even close to it and his open cases were piling up.

Casey and Donnelly agreed. Casey said,

"I have to agree with you Captain. We need him to talk and he is not going to do that with Olivia and Nick. Elliot please give it a try."

Elliot looked at Olivia for her approval. She nodded she knew he could get what they needed. He walked into the room with Fin and closed the door, he pulled up a chair and sat down. Ricket was all proud of himself and said,

"I knew if I held out they would send you in here."

Elliot sat and looked at Ricket who was looking Elliot in the eye, Ricket got fidgety and said,

"What happened to the anger?"

Elliot said,

"I lost it when I retired. Why?"

Ricket said,

"I bet I can make it resurface."

Fin stepped in and said as Elliot did not react,

"So what did you do with Carey Lynn's body?"

Ricket did not take his eyes off of Elliot. He answered Fin,

"I don't know what you are talking about..."

Elliot still sat silently watching Ricket get more nervous at the fact that Elliot was not talking. Fin said,

"We went to your aunt's house and CSU found Carey Lynn's blood at the house but no body. Her family deserves to know what you did with her.."

Ricket looked at Elliot and said,

"Why are you not talking? You used to get real pleasure out of our conversations before."

Elliot finally spoke,

"If we look in your aunts cold cellar what will we find?"

Ricket had a smile on his face and said,

"The old bastard finally speaks. And as to your question my aunt does not have a cold room."

Elliot looked at Fin as both men got up, Elliot said,

"Ricket don't go anywhere we need to check something out."

Cragen looked at Elliot as he came out of the door and said,

"What was that all about?"

Elliot,

"Finding Carey Lynn..."

Fin said,

"I will call CSU and have them check for any new structures or hidden walls while they are still there."

Elliot said,

"I asked about a cold cellar he said there was no cold room. The last time I was there there was an unfinished basement. This time the file says there was recent construction. I think he has build a hidden panic room or cold room where he is keeping the body, just keep him here until you find out."

Cragen sent Fin and Amarro to check out the Aunt's house for a cold room. While they were gone, the rest of them went into the squad room where Munch offered Elliot some of his famous swill. Elliot took some for old times sake and said,

"No offense John but I don't miss this swill or should I say coffee."

John laughed. He missed the old days when the four of them spend hours on a case and got justice for the victim. Elliot talked to John as he watched Olivia go into Cragen's office. John asked,

"Have you even thought of a date?"

Elliot nodded he said,

"I have been thinking early New Years Eve."

Judge Donnelly overheard him,

"Why wait? We are in heading into September what does Olivia think?"

Olivia asked as she came up on the conversation,

"What do I think about what?"

Judge,

"Getting married early New Years Eve?"

She looked at Elliot who said,

"Everyone keeps asking. Was I cheesy enough?"

She laughed and said,

"You know since we are not having a big affair and don't need to do a lot of planning, I was thinking the sooner the better. Why not next weekend?"

All eyes were on Elliot. He saw everyone watching him and said,

"We just need to make sure the kids are all able to be there and that will be fine."

She laughed,

"They are. I asked them before they left the other night."

Elliot looked very surprised and acted insulted as he said to her,

"Not even married and you are keeping secrets?"

She swatted him,

"No I just need to make sure Simon was available along with everyone else."

The room was a buzz with the news. Judge Donnelly said,

"So next Saturday afternoon, my court room? Time?"

Olivia laughed as she said,

"Why Judge Donnelly if I didn't know better I would think you are more excited than we are?"

Elliot looked at her. She said,

"I didn't mean it the way it sounded it. I am more excited than words can express. I just under estimated everyone elses reaction."

He nodded. She then asked,

"We doing the religious part?"

He shook his head,

"No. I am more than ok with a non religious ceremony. Besides if we decide to have it blessed we can since Kathy and I got a full annulment through the church so that is always an option if we decide to do that later."

Cragen came out and said,

"Fin just called. They found Carey Lyn's body. Ricket did have a sound proof room built in the basement with a hidden door. CSU used sonar and thermal equipment to find the body. Melinda is with them and says she has been dead roughly 10 hours. They are on their way back in."

Munch headed to the interrogation room to get Ricket and put him in lock up as Casey said,

"Charge him with murder and I will make sure he never gets out again."


	26. Their Circle Completed

Olivia woke up early, she was so excited about the day ahead, her wedding day, she sat having a glass of juice. She couldn't believe that this day was here, she never dreamt in a million years that she would be marrying Elliot, she thought about the first time she knew she loved him, she also knew what it was that drew her to him. He never talked much about his life, but he showed every day with his actions how he felt about her. Even before the Gitano case solidified to her how he felt about her, she knew that one day they would be together, she didn't know why but they would be. She thought about their friends and how excited and supportive they were about the upcoming union. Her thoughts were interrupted when she heard a knock on the door, she got up and answered it to find Alex, Melinda and Casey there. They came in as Casey said,

"You nervous yet?"

Olivia laughed,

"I am nervous that this is a dream and I am going to wake up and none of this past year will have happened. I don't want to be the Bobby Ewing of New York.'

They laughed as Alex said,

"I saw Elliot's kids going to his room, they are so excited for you two."

Olivia nodded,

"They have really accepted this well, but it helps that Kathy moved on and got married first last year."

Melinda said,

"Even though you are not getting married in a church or in white we still want to help you keep some of the traditions, we are the 3 wise women, I have something borrowed for you."

And she handed Olivia her gold bracelet. Then Alex said,

"I have something blue."

She handed Olivia a baby blue backed Cameo.

And finally Casey said,

"I have something new."

And she handed Olivia a Burgundy garder belt. Causing Olivia to laugh and say,

"Oh El is going to love this."

The womens laughter was interrupted by a knock on the door, Casey answered it,

"Captain come on in."

Olivia looked at the man who was like a father to her, as he said,

"Just coming to see if you need anything."

She asked,

"Have you seen Elliot?"

He nodded,

"Yes and he has not run. His kids are with him right now and Eli is so excited that he is in there dancing around. Elizabeth is helping him practise his walk and he is adding a little flare to it. Are you nervous?"

Olivia blushed,

"A little but I am much more excited than anything else. I am really excited that you are walking me down the aisle. I feel like we have come full circle..."

Cragen said,

"It only took 14 years and 1 marriage and umpteen boyfriends..."

They all laughed as Cragen said,

"I will leave you to get ready and will be back in an hour to walk you down the aisle. I am going to have a soda with Fin and John."

Olivia hugged him and he left. As soon as the door closed, Alex said,

"Casey, Melinda and I were talking last night over dinner after shopping about when we realized you two had more than work feelings for each other. Melinda said from the day she met you two she sensed something. Casey said she knew something was different when it came to me coming out of witness protection she saw the bond between you two. And as for myself, I met you two early in your partnership, Elliot was married and you were dating other guys so I saw nothing then. But when I came out of witness protection and you guys were guarding me and I got to spend some time alone with Elliot, he was divorced he had lost his suits for the most part and just the way he talked about you and the way you two interacted I realized something had changed. But we are all curious as to when you knew?"

She blushed as Casey said,

"Come on you have to tell us, enquiring minds want to know."

Melinda added,

"Just gossip between friends."

She said smiling as she remembered,

"The first day I met him and found out we would be partners, I thought he was so cute and nice then I saw the ring and thought Thank God. Then in our first year together I had a one night stand with Brian Cassidy and Brian wanted more and I didn't. Elliot knew and I won't say what he said to me about it but it made me wonder if he was a one woman man. Years later I met his previous female partner, Jo Marlowe who he told me about just leaving out the part about her being female, and she left me wondering if the two of them had ever gotten together. I never asked but other cases came along and I knew he had never cheated on Kathy."

Casey asked,

"When did you know he felt the same way about you?"

Olivia thought about it and said,

"Every time he chased away a boyfriend, who in the end was not right for me. But I think I knew for sure after Kathy filed for divorce. You know he was never much into talking about his feelings and we know Huang took it personal when Elliot would not talk to him or would not show honest feelings with him. Elliot told me it was the Irish Catholic way, men needed to be strong and not show emotion. But Kathy called me because he would not sign the papers and told me that he needed to feel like he was on solid ground before he could move on, she wanted me to talk to him. I did and he signed them. Then Gitano happened, then I transferred out, then Oregon happened, Dani Beck happened and when I came back he was more angry than I ever remember. Not at me just at the situation. Then Pete Breslin happened and El hit rock bottom and ended up going to see Doc Hendrix. She helped him alot because afterwards he started opening up to me. But through it all he was never angry at me he was just scared he was going to lose me and my friendship and he told me he could not handle that."

Melinda asked,

"Did you know Munch started a dancing pool?"

Olivia shook her head, she loved Munch, and asked,

"What kind of pool?"

Alex,

"As to how many excuses Elliot will use to get out of dancing in front of everyone."

Olivia chuckled,

"Do want some insider information?"

Casey asked,

"Sure. I haven't placed a bet yet..."

She stopped her sentence when she realized they were all looking at her. When they saw her sheepish look they started to howl with laughter. Melinda said,

"Your look was priceless as if you were imagining tomorrow's headline, 'ADA pinched in gambling raid at police wedding in Courthouse'. "

They all laughed so hard they had tears running, Olivia said as she wiped her eyes,

"Good thing my make up isn't done yet."

Alex asked,

"What insider info?"

Olivia said,

"You all know I like to dance. Well I never knew whether or not Elliot could dance I never really thought about it. When we went to Hawaii, we went to a laua with Rita, George, Jeff and Sabrina and they do a traditional dance before we ate. They asked for volunteers and Elliot volunteered and pulled me up with him, and we danced. We went to a couple of dance bars on the island and I will tell you, the man can dance. When I mentioned it to his kids, the girls all said he taught them all how to dance and not just slow dances but he would hold dance lesson Saturdays. So he will be dancing tonight."

There was another knock on the door, Melinda answered it. Simon walked in, he saw Olivia's red eyes and looked worried, he asked,

"What happened? Are you okay?"

She nodded,

"Yes. We were laughing so hard we started to cry. I am good. I am really excited."

She hugged him and he returned it and let out a sigh of relief,

"I haven't seen Elliot yet. I stopped here first."

Casey, Alex and Melinda took this as their cue to leave. Olivia said,

"I am so glad you are here."

Simon said,

"We have come so far over the years and now today I get to be part of the biggest day of your life. I am so happy for you."

Olivia said,

"I am so thrilled you are here too. I am glad I found you, having my family here makes this day even more special."

Elliot was in his groom's room with his kids, Maureen and Kathleen were making sure his suit was right as Elizabeth made sure Richard and Eli's suits were ready. Richard was going to help Eli get dressed Elliot had already taught Richard how to tie a tie, mind you he hadn't worn a tie since his confirmation. Once the girls were satisfied that all was right with the suits, they hugged Elliot and said,

"Ok Dad we will let you get dressed, we are going to the bride's room to make sure that Olivia is all set and getting ready over there."

There was another knock on the door and Olivia walked over to open the door. It was her side of the wedding party, Maureen and Elizabeth her bridesmaids and Kathleen, who she had gotten close to as her maid of honour. Simon looked at the girls and gave them each a hug and said,

"I take this as my sign to get to the groom's room and get ready."

And he left.

As Elliot stripped out of his jeans and tshirt he pulled his tux pants on over his boxers just as their was a fast knock at the door and it opened. Elliot looked towards the door as he heard a whistle, he blushed as he zipped up his trousers. The whistler said,

"I am sorry I should have waited til you said ok. But I saw your kids leave and thought it was safe."

He watched as his bare chest was scanned up and down, he didn't even bother to grab for a shirt he grabbed his socks and sat down to put them on, as he did he said,

"Well Elizabeth, I, again, want to thank you for performing the ceremony."

She said as she watched him continue to dress, she had always found his anger and brooding sexy, she had not known him during his early years but Alex had told her that he was so much calmer when she had started, but since he retired and gone into therapy she REALLY liked him.

He knew that she liked him, he saw the way she looked at him and came to his defense on many occasions he had her to thank for him not losing everything when he and Casey got sued for $10million dollars each, amongst other times. He still remembered when Dale Starkey was after them all he showed up on her doorstep to make sure she was ok and she told him she was disappointed he was not there for a social call.

She said as she watched him stand up and put his shirt on,

"I am honoured to do it for you two. It seemed only fitting considering the journey I have witnessed you and Olivia have been on. I am just checking in to see if you changed your mind..."

The door opened and Elliot's brothers and mother walked in, his brother said,

"He had better not, I want to get my monies worth out of this tux."

Elliot gave his mom a hug. Bernie said to him as she straightened ,

"You always did look good in a tux. Now you haven't spoiled the day for Olivia by seeing her yet have you?"

He laughed as he tied his tie,

"My romantic daughters banned me from seeing her"

Richard said,

"Kathleen made me and Eli stay with Dad last night to make sure there was no hanky panky."

Bernie said,

"My Katie said hanky panky/"

Eli said,

"No. Grandma B she said..."

Richard said moving his brother to the bathroom,

"Come on Little E I'll help you with your tie."

Elliot and Bernie laughed, as Bernie said,

"They both have a lot of you in them."

Elliot smiled at his mom as he said,

"Yeah, they all do."

Bernie said,

"Elliot I have to say when you and Kathy divorced..."

Elliot shook his head, Bernie put her hand on his arm and stopped him,

"I never thought you would open yourself up enough to find love again. I am so glad you did and I am so glad to be here today to see this, I have always been proud of you and today just shows why."

Elliot hugged his mother, he didn't want to get emotional but his eyes got wet,

"Thanks mom. I am glad you are here too."

Bernie patted his back, and just nodded not saying a thing about his misty eyes.

There was a knock on the door, as Judge Donnelly said,

"It's time."

Elliot rubbed his hands and said,

"Okay. Richard, Eli - let's do this thing."

Cragen knocked on Olivia's door. She said,

"Come on in."

The Captain walked in and said,

"It's time. Are you ready?"

Kathleen zipped up the back of Olivia's dress as Maureen put the finishing touches on her hair. Elizabeth touched up her makeup as she said,

"Well ladies. How do I look?"

Maureen,

"Less nervous than Dad. He is trying to act all tough and macho. But we can see it."

Cragen laughed at the thought. Then he took Olivia's hand as she wrapped it around his arm and Alex came back in with Eli, to let her know they were ready. Olivia looked at him and said smiling,

"Well Master Stabler are you nervous?"

Eli shook his head,

"Not as nervous as Daddy."

Causing everyone to laugh adding to the fun of the day.

All eyes in the room were on Elliot as he walked down the aisle of the court room to the front of Judge Donnelly's court with Richard, Simon, and his brother David. Eli would come in ahead of Olivia.

As Elliot got to the front of the courtroom, Elizabeth Donnelly was standing there and showed him where to stand. As she did, she whispered,

"It's been a while since you have been in my courtroom, do you need a refresher as to where the closest exit is?"

His brother overheard and laughed causing Elliot to give him the evil eye causing him to laugh even harder. Maureen stuck her head in the door and nodded, and as the music started Fin and Munch headed to the doors to hold them open for the ladies. Maureen came down the aisle first, followed by Elizabeth and then Kathleen. The girls had taught Eli how to dance so he could at the reception but he decided to try it out early, as he came down the aisle he did the dance moves he had been shown, causing Elliot to laugh and high five him when he got to the front of the room. As soon as they were at the front the wedding march started and Cragen and Olivia came into view of the open doors. Olivia was wearing a very classic form fitting beige gown, she and Cragen walked down the aisle and everyone stood up. Once they got to the front Elliot shook Cragen's hand and as he handed Olivia's over to him. He looked her up and down and said,

"You look beautiful."

She said,

"You don't look so bad yourself."

Judge Donnelly cleared her throat as she caught their attention. She started,

_We are gathered here today to celebrate one of life's greatest moments, to give recognition to the worth and beauty of love, and to add our best wishes to the words which shall unite Olivia and Elliot in marriage._

If there is anyone here who has cause why this couple should not be united in marriage, they must speak now or forever hold their peace.

She looked around the courtroom knowing full well no one would object.

As Cragen stood holding Olivia's hand, Donnelly asked,__

Who is it that brings this woman to this man?

Cragen said,

"I do."

And he handed Olivia to Elliot and turned to go sit down.__

Olivia and Elliot , I would ask that you both remember to treat yourself and each other with respect, and remind yourself often of what brought you together today. Give the highest priority to the tenderness, gentleness and kindness that your marriage deserves. When frustration and difficulty assail your marriage - as they do to every relationship at one time or another - focus on what still seems right between you, not only the part that seems wrong. This way, when clouds of trouble hide the sun in your lives and you lose sight of it for a moment, you can remember that the sun is still there. And if each of you will take responsibility for the quality of your life together, it will be marked by abundance and delight.

She then said,_  
Elliot, do you take Olivia to be your Wife? Do you promise to love, honor, cherish and protect her, forsaking all others and holding only unto her forevermore?  
_Elliot looked at Olivia and said,

"I do."

_Olivia, do you take Elliot to be your Husband? Do you promise to love, honor, cherish and protect him, forsaking all others and holding only unto him forevermore? _

Olivia looked at Elliot and said,

"I do."

Donnelly said,

"Who has the rings?"  
Eli stepped forward,

"I do."

He handed them to Elliot, who then handed them to the Judge. She handed Olivia's to Elliot saying,

"I understand this part is all you two."

They nodded. He took the ring and said as he took her hand,

_I, Elliot, take thee, Olivia to be my Wife- To have and to hold, in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer, in joy and sorrow and I promise my love to you. With this ring, I take you as my wife, for as long as we both shall live"_

Donnelly then handed Olivia her ring for Elliot and said as she took his hand,__

I, Olivia, take thee, Elliot, to be my Husband. To have and to hold, in sickness and in health , for richer or for poorer, in joy and sorrow, and I promise My love to you. With this ring, I take you as my husband, for as long as we both shall live."

Donnelly then continued,__

Olivia and Elliot as the two of you come into this marriage uniting you as husband and wife, and as you this day affirm your faith and love for one another, I would ask that you always remember to cherish each other as special and unique individuals, that you respect the thoughts, ideas and suggestions of one another. Be able to forgive, do not hold grudges, and live each day that you may share it together - as from this day forward you shall be each other's home, comfort and refuge, your marriage strengthened by your love and respect for each other.

Just as two threads woven in opposite directions will form a most beautiful tapestry, so too can your two lives merged together make a beautiful marriage. To make your relationship work will take love. This is the core of your marriage and why you are here today. It will take trust , to know in your hearts that you truly want the best for each other. It will take dedication, to stay open to one another - and to learn and grow together. It will take faith, to go forward together without knowing exactly what the future brings. And it will take commitment, to hold true to the journey you both pledge today to share together.

Olivia and Elliot, in so much as the two of you have agreed to live together in Matrimony, have promised your love for each other by these vows, the joining of your hands and the giving of these rings, I now declare you to be Husband and Wife.

_Congratulations, you may kiss your bride._

It is my privilege to present to you Mr. & Mrs. Elliot Stabler. 

The ceremony was beautiful, elegant and simple, just what they wanted.

For the reception Sabrina wanted it to be her gift to them so she rented out a private room at one of Bobby Flay's restaurants for the night and Cragen, Fin and Munch, got the music for the party. George and Rita came to the wedding as Olivia and Elliot had gotten along so well with them, and in theory, they were the first friends they made as a couple in this new chapter of their lives they were starting.

**The End**

**The End**

**The End**

**The End**


End file.
